When we look at the three-year cycle of Sunday readings,
it doesn’t take long to figure out
that Advent readings
are frequently odd,
edgy,
a little strange.
At times…
they are even disturbing.
They present a season
at sharp contrast to our
comfortable view of Advent as
quiet,
reflective,
sedate—
a simple, cozy time of preparation
to receive a baby in the manger.
Some years,
we are put on notice—
we are issued dire warnings
to “Stay Awake!”
“Be Alert!”
Other years,
we are transported into the desert
to see images of a desolate wilderness
bursting into bloom,
and burning sands
transformed into pools of clear, cool water.
One year,
like headlines
ripped from a tabloid magazine,
we read of a woman
clothed in the sun,
crying out in the pangs of birth,
while a dragon awaits
to devour her newborn child.
This year,
we are invited to study some
engineering reports and construction blueprints
that describe highways
being excavated through the desert,
mountains bulldozed low,
and valleys backfilled and leveled.
We discover that time
Shatters
during Advent.
Like the experience of tumbling
down Alice’s rabbit hole,
time looks backward,
then forward,
then stands still.
We hear that a single day
is like a thousand years,
and that Heaven
will pass away with a mighty roar.
It will dissolve into flames
while the earth’s elements
melt in fire.
Advent is a sharp reminder
that our concept of time--
Linear
Logical,
Obedient,
Domesticated—
with a beginning,
middle,
end,
is not necessarily God’s time,
which may be slanting,
or spiral,
and well beyond our ability
to comprehend or measure.
Advent points us to another,
more mysterious kind of time—
the time that exists
only
in the eternal being of God.
This is Time that
explodes galaxies into life.
Time that brings God
incarnate and near.
God’s time is both eternal
and immediate.
Beginning and ending.
Already and not yet.
Single day
and a thousand years.
Advent reminds us that God’s plan
does not reach its peak in the birth of Jesus,
or even in his death and resurrection,
but in his second coming
at the end of all time.
And in this season—
this Kairos—
this expanding,
permeable,
eternal,
immediate
already-but-not-yet
Time,
emerge the people of Advent.
And these Advent people
are as challenging
and as unconventional
as the images we see
and the words we hear.
Today,
we hear the shout of a rough man
emerging from the wilderness.
We see a wild man.
Unkempt.
Unrelenting.
Untamed.
A man wearing a goat hair shirt
and munching on locusts and honey.
This man of Advent
calls people to repentance,
plunges them
deep into the waters of baptism,
and reminds them
of their need for forgiveness.
If these images,
these concepts of time,
these words we encounter during Advent
do not seem challenging to us—
If we are not astonished
at the stories we hear
and the people we meet
during this season of “quiet preparation”
it could be
we are not really paying attention.
It could be
we have heard these stories so often,
that we have transformed their strangeness
into sweet and sentimental images
on a Christmas Card.
It might be
that we rubbed their sharp edges smooth
and tamed their radical surprise.
HG Wells once said,
There is either something
Mad
about the Christian message,
or else our hearts
are still too small to comprehend it.
Advent
with its strange warnings,
exploded time,
surprising images
and unexpected people
is a time to enlarge our hearts—
to enter into a world
where nothing is as it seems
and everything is sideways.
If we are truly listening,
it becomes clear that
Advent
is something more
than a season of quiet reflection
or the sentimental story
of a mother and child.
Advent is more
than a time of preparation—
It is more than
a safe and fragrant resting spot
between the bounty of Thanksgiving
and the chaos of Christmas.
Advent is a world where
people who seem to be on the brink of disaster
experience hope so profound
that it changes the course of humanity.
It is a world where the astonishing becomes
Ordinary
and the ordinary becomes sacred.
It is a season that opens a small
rip—
a tear in the veil
between our time and God’s time,
giving us a glimpse of eternity.
On this Advent journey toward hope
we might just discover that
somewhere along the way
our own lives have become
too small,
too tame,
too safe.
If we are listening,
we might hear an invitation
to enter into God’s time--
to step out into the wilderness,
plunge into the waters,
say yes to God,
and await the sound of angels,
singing songs of glory and joy.
Welcome to the second week of Advent!
It is an invitation into a world
where God can surprise us
and all bets are off.
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