Stir Up Your Strength and Come

I like Advent calendars. I always have. I like having that pretty Nativity scene to look at while, each day, I open another window. Sometimes I even have to hunt for them – that pesky #13 or #17 can get hidden in a shepherd’s cloak or an angel’s wing! I even like the black and white Advent calendar that looks like a winding path, with each day’s suggestion of a helpful spiritual practice. But – and on this first Sunday in Advent I will risk sounding like the Grinch that stole Christmas – Advent is not a time of preparation for Christmas. In our stores, our print and broadcast media, and many of our homes we have begun the “Christmas season.” Actually the big Christmas season, with its insistence that we honor Jesus by maxing out our credit cards, is virtually unique to this country. Even so, unlike the rest of the mad world around us, in the church at least, we have begun the season of Advent. Advent: that slow, reflective time, when the church asks us to pause, be quiet, and turn towards God. And it took me a long time to realize this: Advent is not a preparation for Christmas. Advent is a season with blessings and graces of its own. Advent marks the beginning of a new church year – in our cycle of Eucharistic lections we are now in Year B. As in the other years in the Revised Common Lectionary cycle, in Advent we begin by retelling the old story, a retelling that will occupy us from now through next Pentecost. And on this very first day, as we begin the retelling, by God’s grace we also see glimpses of the end of our story and the hope that we bear as disciples of Jesus.

At its deepest, Advent is a season of reflection, reflection on at least three levels. On the first level, Advent allows us to give voice to our deepest longings for God’s presence in our world. As we hear the laments of the Psalmist and of Isaiah, we can resonate with the pain and longing in their voices. Decrying the invasion of Israel by the Assyrians, the psalmist cries, “Stir up your strength and come to help us. Restore us, O God with great armies, let us see your face….” Similarly, the prophet of Third Isaiah gives voice to his people’s sense of having been abandoned by God, as they return from exile to a ruined Jerusalem. Here too we hear a cry for God’s presence: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” come down so powerfully that even the mountains would feel your presence.

As we look around at our own world, don’t we feel that same sense of longing for God’s presence? “Occupy Wall Street” has bitterly reminded us of the great economic disparities in this country. The failure of the so-called “Super Committee” to reach compromise on the federal budget reflects our deeply partisan political divide. Even worse, Greece, Italy, Ireland, and other western European countries stagger under unmanageable debt loads and struggle to take the unpalatable measures necessary to deal with their debts. In the Middle East, the “Arab Spring” rid the world of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. What forces will rush in to fill these political vacuums remains to be seen. And when we turn to Africa, we just want to weep over the devastation in Somalia, Darfur, Liberia, and Zimbabwe. As you look around our tattered world, what most disturbs you? For me, as I contemplate our crazy quilt of employer-dependent health insurance, with its vast inequities in access to adequate healthcare, I want to weep. And what pulls at your hearts? What in the world, or even in this community, cries out for attention? Advent is a good time to reflect on what most urges us to shout at God, “Stir up your strength and come among us – and fix things!”

But Advent allows us to do more than bewail the injustices, poverty, and conflict of our world. On a second level, Advent also bids us reflect on our hopes for the future, our expectation of God’s future. The psalmist and Isaiah do more than just cry out. Even before crying out, the psalmist reminds God that God is Israel’s shepherd, “leading Joseph like a flock.” Although Israel’s sins perhaps led to the sense of abandonment by God that Isaiah’s people feel, even so the prophet reminds his hearers of the special relationship between God and God’s people, and of God’s love for God’s people: “We are the clay, and you are our potter, we are all the work of your hand…. We are all your people.” As disciples of Jesus, we too are grounded in that assurance of God’s love for God’s people. But we also believe that, just as God broke into our world once, God will break in again to complete the establishment of God’s reign. How and when this will occur we do not know, nor should we waste time speculating on what Jesus himself suggests we cannot know. What we do need to do is reflect on what our own future hopes are. Rather than surrendering to the frenzy of the “Christmas season,” pause and take a few minutes to reflect on your own hopes for the future. What would you like to see happen during your lifetime? What is your vision of God’s reign? When you hear those words, do you think of the peaceable kingdom in which lions and lambs lie down together? Do you think of a “new heaven and a new earth?” of a “new Jerusalem,” of a time and place where there is no more war and death, sickness and poverty? Do you think of the “river of life,” with its trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nations? How do you picture God’s reign? What do you hope for most deeply? Take the gift of Advent and reflect on that hope and offer it to God.

Finally, on a third level, Advent bids us reflect on how to live in this “middle time,” this time between Christ’s first coming and Christ’s glorious return. In our Gospel reading, Jesus says it all: “Beware, keep alert…. Keep awake.” Rather than letting ourselves be dazzled by holiday lights and decorations or deafened by the endless Muzak Christmas carols that assault us in every store, rather than letting us rush straight to the manger, Advent bids us remain alert and awake to the ways in which Christ may be at work in our lives now. The two are not mutually exclusive: the “hope of glory” does not exempt us from present action. Cardinal Cushing often told about the little girl who loved to sit and listen to her grandmother read the story of creation in Genesis. Noticing that the girl seemed unusually attentive, the grandmother asked her what she thought of the Genesis story. “Oh, I love it,” she said, “You never know what God is going to do next.” In Advent, as we acknowledge that God did not finish or exhaust creation in the past, as we long for the perfection of creation and the coming of God’s reign in the future, we too might agree that we “never know what God is going to do next.” As we seek to hear Christ’s voice in the noisy world around us, we sense that God has not abandoned us, and we believe Jesus’ promise that, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In this season of Advent, we reflect on our longing for God, our hopes for the future, and our confidence in God’s help in the present. As a way of deepening our appreciation for the church’s gift to us of Advent, I’d like to urge you to take seriously the suggestions of the Advent Conspiracy.1 Started in 2006 by five pastors, the Advent Conspiracy asks us to revolutionize our observance of Advent through four actions. The first action is to worship fully. We are asked to put down our burdens and regularly lift up a heartfelt song. The second action is to spend less. Certainly our kids love their gifts. But consider this: Americans spend over $450 billion a year every Christmas. Could you buy one fewer gift this year? Could you give instead a gift of service or a photograph or a heartfelt letter of appreciation? Could you give what you save to someone in need? The third action is to give more. During this Advent season, rather than rushing to the stores, perhaps we could give our friends and family a precious gift of time or attention. Do you need to write an old friend a letter? Do you need to sit and hear someone’s story? Finally, the reflection in which we engage in Advent should help us to love all. Can we follow Jesus by loving as he loved? By spending less at Christmas we can join Him in giving resources to those who need help the most. When the Advent Conspiracy first began four churches offered this simple challenge to their congregations. The result raised more than half a million dollars to aid those in need. One fewer gift. One unbelievable gift in the name of Christ.

“Stir up your strength and come to help us.” O God, when you come, may you find us alert, awake, and ready to follow where you lead.

1. For example, see http://ac.wcrossing.org/default.aspx?page=3684