Advent: What?
Think of a time when you were expecting something with longing, but weren't quite sure what it would be like. Maybe your wedding day, graduation from college, a new job or the birth of your child. Think about the planning, the waiting, the tension and the disagreements with others as you waited for the coming event. Think about the joy and the special closeness you felt with others waiting for this event as well.
Now, consider a time when you were expecting something but were pretty sure of what it would be like -- you were just marking time until this thing came to pass. Monthly communion, perhaps, or the birth of a second or third child. Your third or fourth race of a certain distance. Another Christmas? Another Pentecost? The waiting is more annoying than it is constructive. Until you realize that when the event happens, something is different. The differences between the birth you expected and the birth you experienced are too intense to describe. The November race ends up in 6 inches of snow. Something breaks through in the singing of "Joy to the World" or "Hail Thee, Festival Day" that takes your breath away. Or perhaps things don't come together at all the way you expected. I'm sure that my father didn't expect to end up in the hospital with a heart attack on Christmas Day 2004, never to come home again. Even when the expectation is routine, we know that preparation is no less important. We never know what will happen.
Advent is a time of expectation, a gift from our mother, the Church, to prepare us and point us to Christ. It helps us to remember that the Redeemer is already here, but that the Redemption is still at hand. Advent has taken many forms since it first came to the Church in the 4th century, and didn't assume its current four-week structure of hope, peace, joy and love until after the Reformation. But we have it and it is a powerful means to orient us toward Christ in a new way.
Advent: Why?
The Old Testament is full of expectation. As early as Genesis 3:15, with Adam, Eve and the Serpent engaged in comparing and blaming, God promises that enmity -- strife and conflict -- will be the lot between the children of Eve and the Serpent, the personification of temptation. And yet, God promises that the Serpent will bruise the heel of Eve's child, while having his own head crushed. Isaiah, preaching to Israel oppressed by about to be taken into bondage in Assyria, promises that one will come who will be "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:2-7). He further promises that that one will come in judgment and set everything right (cf. Isaiah 11:1-5). The people of Israel were seeking a king who would relieve them from their oppression and avenge their enemies. We know now how wrong they were -- or do we? We still await the full consolation of Israel, and we know that blaming and comparing still rule in our lives as much as those around us. As Advent points us again toward Christmas as the Christ who came in a way so markedly outside of expectations, can we prepare for His coming?
But what will His coming look like? We know that the Israelites were wrong to look for their knight in shining armor to come riding in on a white horse to take the reigns from whatever nation, ruler or chaos was oppressing them at the time. Their savior came in humblest of means, on a donkey. We rightly await our trumpet sound and king returning in Glory to set things right -- or do we? What will that trumpet sound like? What will Jesus' face look like? What does it really mean to be "caught up with him"? Just as the Israelites had no shortage of prophecy about the true nature of Jesus' coming, many didn't see him because they were still looking for someone else -- someone greater than them -- someone more powerful than them -- because that is what it would take to set things right. But Christ's human form was nothing that people would consider extraordinary at the time. He preached meekness as the investment for inheriting the earth, hunger and thirst as the prerequisite for satisfaction, making peace as the gateway to being a child of God and death as the road to eternal life. No wonder Israel didn't recognize him.
Advent: How?
How will you observe Advent this year? Will you expect another Christmas followed by another New Year, in which things might be different but in all likelihood will be just the same? And how will you know Christ when he comes? Consider what Jesus said about how you will know him:
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me...as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. (Matthew 25:35-37, 40)Are you waiting for Christ to come with the trumpet sound to catch you and take you away from this mortal coil, where sin and sorrow and death are no more? Or is He calling you to bring about His Kingdom through you, as you move beyond blaming and comparing and disobeying and serve Christ where He said He would be found?
I lay no claim to having solved this dilemma in my own life, for as I was leaving the church after leading this very lesson, I was approached by a homeless man asking for some food. I, a well-dressed Christian coming from church with only $20 bills in my pockets, hurried past this man, ignoring his pleas. Making mental excuses: "but I have no small change -- but our city leaders ask us to not give money to such as these, they have access to services and we wouldn't want to become the place for more to seek to panhandle in our streets -- but how dare he approach me at an inconvenient time? --how do I know he wouldn't just use the money for booze or drugs?" No, I fear that I may have seen the very Christ I claimed to worship as I left the building but could not make space for him in my own Inn.
May God open our eyes to see and give us wisdom to discern when Christ stand before us with open arms, and give us the grace we need to stop the blaming and comparing and bring about His Kingdom on earth.
