(prayer)
A match will burn for long
enough
to light a single candle.
A candle only burns
until the conversation's
done.
One bright conversation
spreads a light across a
lifetime.
Every life has time enough
to shine like the sun.
(from Single Candle - David Wilcox)
//
Today, by the light of this single candle, we are beginning a
conversation that will accompany us (and illuminate our path) over the next
four weeks as we approach the Christ Mass.
"Advent" (as a
word) has Latin roots and literally means to
come - ad... vent == to... come.
The very name of this
season of the church year that we begin today implies anticipation and waiting.
Waiting and Anticipation
are common passive responses to being in the context of 'something' that is to
come.
A virtue that does well in
times like this is... patience.
When we are anticipating
something to come, we have to wait for the distance and/or time that seperates us from it to make its way down to zero.
You (or someone in your
life) might find patience a bit of a challenge as November gives way to
December and we begin to anticipate the coming of Christmas.
The stereotype is... that
it is young children who find the clocks moving too slowly at this time of
year, and yet I have known many adults who get pretty impatient at this time of
year.
//
I said that two aspects of
Advent are anticipation and waiting - and that would be enough if Christmas was
a day that we expect to simply show up
on its own on the 25th of December and we enjoy it in the moment it arrives.
However, for many of us, I
suspect that a third aspect will be part of the next twenty-eight days... Preparation.
Some of this will involve
practical plans that we choose to do to make the Christmas time a time of celebration.
Some people make
preparations to travel or receive visitors.
For many, there will be a
special meal that will not just happen if details are left to the last minute.
I know that many people
want to (and are able to) share in the tradition of gift-giving at this time of
year - gifts for family, friends, co-workers, teachers, [pastors], etc. and
generosity shared with people we don't even know personally, but we believe can
use some practical grace in their lives.
The proverb says that it is
the thought that counts not the gift itself - thinking about a person and what
might be a good and meaningful gift for them, can and should take some energy.
While we will make our way
to Christmas by simply waiting... for most of us, the coming weeks will include
some preparation as well.
//
The Christmas season has
grown to have such a wide appreciation within our Canadian context that it is
anticipated by people of many cultural backgrounds, including a significant
number of willing revelers with little or no connection to Christianity.
The celebration is
cross-cultural and has many deeply appreciated traditions that have limited or no religious roots to them.
I bet you that we could
spend the next twenty minutes listing off secular Christmas symbols or
traditions or music that we will encounter in the coming weeks.
//
The weeks before Christmas
can be busy and have many wonderful distractions to catch our attention.
And yet.... for those who
are interested in the Christian aspects of this season, more attention is
needed. We accept the challenge to find
the Christ-child amid the tinsel and coloured lights and the jolly old elf in
the reindeer-drawn sleigh.
To do this, we willingly
work at keeping Christ in Christmas for us.
//
I am not one of those
complaining religious zealots who bemoans the secular or non-Christian
traditions and activities that surround Christmas and demands a hearty
"merry christmas" from every clerk in every store.
As the Church of Jesus, we
don't hold a monopoly on this time of year.
Remember that the reason why the early Christians celebrated Jesus'
birth at this time of year had nothing to do with any knowledge of what time of
year he was actually born, but because they could hold their celebrations under
cover of the winter solstice celebration and the mid-winter festival to the
Roman god, Saturn. When Christianity was
an underground (even outlawed) religious sect, they found ways to celebrate
without drawing too much attention.
So, when people complain
that some people are co-opting the Christmas season, I point out that this is
okay, because we did it first.
//
//
As I have noted in other
contexts - at other times - we (the church) should not feel the need
to rely on those outside of our traditions to do the work of promoting our festivals and the stories those
festivals celebrate. That is our work to
do.
//
For us, who are interested
in Christmas as a time to remember the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, Advent
pretty much has to include some focused preparation as we move closer to
December 25th.
//
//
The season of Advent is the
vehicle we are gifted with to aide in this preparation, alongside our
anticipating and waiting.
//
//
//
For today and for each of
the next three Sundays (guided by the passages suggested in the Revised Common
Lectionary), we will hear both a reading from the first century Christian
writing called the Gospel of Matthew
and from the prophetic book of the
Hebrew Scriptures, called Isaiah.
//
The book of Isaiah
(although wonderfully edited together with a consistent writing style) can be
divided into three distinct parts - that speak to three different time of
Judean history.
The first 39 chapters come
from a time of national stability for Judah - the northern Israelite people had
been overrun by the Assyria empire's,
but Judah in the south was allowed to maintain a fair measure of its
autonomy. Since the death of King
Solomon 250 years earlier, northern Israel and southern Judah had each felt
they were the truly faithful people of God and the other was rebellious. With the north's defeat, the south was that
much more assured of their superiority.
Chapters 40 to 55 come from
a slightly later time, after another eastern empire's had forced many people
from the southern kingdom into exile.
The final part of Isaiah
(chapters 56 to 66) describes the time of restoration that followed the return
of the exiles.
//
//
Matthew, although the first
to appear in the New Testament, was written after
the book of Mark was already being read in parts of the early church. Matthew is part of an emerging and evolving
early Christian tradition. Matthew's
gosoel was written independently and roughly contemporaneously with Luke.
//
As we go forward in the
coming weeks, it may appear that we are moving around the various Isaiah and
Matthew texts in sort of a random order, but... as the weeks progress, we will
explore some basic aspects of our faithful tradition that will serve us well as
we follow the road that leads to the intersection where the divine and human
meet.
//
//
As we heard during the
candle lighting for our advent wreath, we are designating the first candle with
the word: hope.
Hope is... a feeling of
expectation that something we desire will come to pass.
Typically, when we use the
word, hope, we are not necessarily speaking with a lot of certainty.
Hope can express a desire
that others might see as unlikely.
Like many feelings, hope
can be more influenced by emotions more than logic.
Jim Wallis of sojo.net
defines hope as believing in spite of the
evidence.
The architect character in
the second Matrix movie (Reloaded) -
after Neo chose not to follow the logical path his predecessors had done before
him - proclaimed "Hope. It is the quintessential human
delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your
greatest weakness."
//
Hopeful people are
sometimes viewed as flighty, unreasonable, even dangerous... and most likely unprepared
for the time to come.
//
Did you catch that irony?
Advent is a time of
preparation. It begins with a light of
hope.
And yet, from the outside,
hopeful people are seen as unprepared.
//
//
The way I look at it, hope
is not a prognostication tool. Hope is
not meant to passively predict the future.
Hope can be what drives us
to set a direction for the future we want to help unfold.
//
Isaiah, chapter two, like
all of our Isaiah readings this Advent, come from the era of national stability
described in the first part of that book.
I mention this because,
when things are going well, people tend to become complacent. They start to believe that the good times
will never stop rolling. Hope can seem a
bit unnecessary in the context of stability.
[That is certainly a
general theme of the Matthew reading... be watchful, not complacent. Wonder can be missed if your focus is too
narrow and selfish.
For me, Matthew also hints
at another barrier to hope. A
resignation that there is nothing new on the horizon to be watching for. Sometimes, people can be overly cynical that
the future will offer anything better that the moment we are in.]
Back to Isaiah... one of
the roles of a prophet is often to get people thinking in different and
challenging ways... to point not necessarily to what is probable, but what is
possible, even preferred... if not predictable.
//
The southern Hebrew kingdom
of Isaiah's time was able to maintain its power because of military loyalty to
Assyria.
As we listened to the
prophet this morning, we heard a longing for a different type of stability.
Isaiah expressed hope for a
future that was truly peaceful based on a mutual coming together of
adversaries, not a tentative peace held together by fear.
//
Into the complacency of a
war-won national stability, Isaiah invites to hope that more is possible.
Imagine
a time without war,
the prophet preaches.
Imagine
if swords were a waste of metal.
Imagine
if people were drawn to the temple as equal creatures of God, no matter what
nation they were from.
Imagine
if Jerusalem was not known for its defensive walls, but for its open
gates.
O
house of Israel, let us move forward in the light of God.
That light is the
illumination of holy hope.
//
//
We begin this Advent Season
with the challenge of hope.
Hope can be equally hard in
the face of complacency and cynicism.
When complacent, we might
feel no need to hope.
When cynical, we might feel
no ability to hope.
These are the challenges to
hope that we (as people who care about the foundational meaning of Christmas)
want to face head on.
Can we hope beyond a
complacency that we are simply repeating our past?
Can we hope beyond a
cynicism that wonder and mystery and change is still possible in a world of
disenfranchisement... where we feel forced to believe that one person's desires
are meaningless?
//
//
So, fellow Followers of
Jesus, let us hold up hope's light as we start down this Advent path.
If the evidence tells you
that Christmas is nothing more than a memorial to days gone by, try to believe,
in spite of the evidence, that the days to come are worth paying attention
to... because Jesus is continuingly being reborn in the hearts of the hopeful.
// end //
Geoffrey Ainger wrote a
hymn (fittingly published by Hope
Publishing), that invites us to not only remember the events of Jesus' life
beginning with his first breaths, but to hope for Christ to walk [in]
our streets again, through the hope that we make manifest as those who walk
our Christ's way.
//
One can only hope.
//
//
Let us pray:
Holy One, ease us through the barriers
of complacency and cynicism so that we can follow the light of this hopeful
season.
#95VU "Born in the Night"
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