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Nov 30th, 2008 – First Sunday of Advent
Readings: Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalms 80:1-7, 16-18; 1Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37;
Preface of Advent
This is a scary world.
Headlines I came across this week read as follows:
“Hundreds killed in Nigerian sectarian riots, reports say - Top official at main mosque says death toll has reached more than 400
“Somali pirates hijack ship, British guards escape”
“Indian forces fight last gunmen in Mumbai hotel”
“Siege ends, death toll rises” - At least 195 people dead in Mumbai after 60-hour terror rampage; Indian forces kill last three gunmen in hotel standoff
Closer to home:
“Wal-Mart worker killed in bargain hunting stampede”
“Shoppers shoot each other in US toy store”
“Frost not guilty of Sexual Exploitation”
“Teen sentenced as adult in Good Samaritan killing”
World governments scramble to combat economic meltdown
“Officials set deadline deal for auto-makers”
“The BCE show takes TSX lower”
“Harper buys time, coalition firms up”
And this is just from this past week. It’s hard not to get depressed when reading the newspaper or watching news broadcasts these days. It seems like we deem something newsworthy to the degree it would shock or sadden us. My sense is that the ‘bad news’ the world offers us is the last thing we here feel we need. Many of us have lost loved ones this year, many have battled illness or watched loved ones fight for their lives. Still others wrestle with job loss, with broken relationships, with hopes dashed. Many feel the pains of time taking its toll on our bodies, our hearts, and our society. And many are afraid. Afraid of what this economic meltdown will do to our pensions, our job security, our day-to-day life. Afraid of the unwavering force of hatred that manifests in terrorist acts. Afraid that the personal pain we carry will never subside and we’ll be forced to live out the rest of our days in sorrow and hardship.
There are different ways we try to deal with our fear – one of the most common is to find distractions that would keep us too busy to deal with our pain. Another is to find an escape – an addictive habit, alcohol, gambling, to name a few, can offer momentary respites from the sting of fear. Still others would take time to imagine a world without pain, a world that will have conquered evil. Science fiction and Fantasy media do a wonderful job of this – they seek to give visions of reality distant from our current crises while at the same time offer scenarios that reflect current issues. I’m a big Star Trek fan, and I always find it interesting how some episodes deal with current issues (assisted suicide, imperialism, capitalist greed) but in a way that allows them to offer alternative perspectives.
A medium not too different from sci-fi, believe it or not, is the apocalyptic literature we find in the Bible. When we think of apocalypticism we tend to think of ‘end of the world’ doomsday movies and predictions about the future. Movies like “Apocalypse Now”, “War of the World”, “Armageddon”, “I Am Legend” (and many many more) all contain storylines that predict humanity will face possible annihilation. They portray our fears, sorrows, and hard times.
In the church we too get into the act, we have series like the popular “Left Behind” story that depicts how these authors imagine the world ending. Perhaps due to stories like these people think of us Christians as ‘doom and gloom’ kind of people. We’re like the priest and pastor from the local parishes standing by the side of the road holding up a sign that reads, "The End is Near! Turn around before it's too late!"
"Leave us alone you religious nuts!" yelled the first driver as he sped by.
From around the curve they heard screeching tires and a big splash. "Do you think," said one clergy to the other, "we should just put up a sign that says 'Bridge Out' instead?”
But a Christian perspective on apocalyptic is not one based on a fear-filled future, but rather it is one borne out of people’s suffering and laced with hope in God’s promises. “Apocalyptic is sometimes called the ‘literature of the dispossessed.’ It usually arises among (at least relatively) oppressed or alienated people who have little chance of fighting back against the powerful and of gaining political, military, and economic power.” (Sacra Pagina, Mark, 379)
God’s people frequently found themselves in difficult positions. By the time of our Isaiah reading today Israel had been conquered by the Persians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. Their culture was ravaged, their kingdom destroyed, their faith tested to the limit. Children were hungry in the streets, buildings lay in ruins, the Temple of Jerusalem, the symbol of their relationship with God, was in shambles. Yet in the midst of their pain the people cry out,
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” (64:1, 3) Israel remembers the times God intervened on their behalf – none greater than when he miraculously freed them from Egypt and gave them the covenant on Mount Sinai. And once again they are in need of saving, and they imagine God coming down from heaven to set things right. The Old Testament prophetic tradition would describe a Messiah who would be an agent of God to bring God’s Kingdom to earth, who would ‘set the captives free’. But his work was also shroud in images of mystery and violence.
Jesus drew on these images when he is teaching his disciples about the ‘end days’. He talks about ‘suffering’, the sun and moon darkened, and stars falling from the sky. (v.24-26). He speaks of when the Son of Man (himself, the Messiah prophesied about since OT times) would return. He assures them that no one will know exactly when he will return to set things right, and for that reason they must “keep alert.”
The time of this gospel’s writing was during a period of great suffering for the first Christians – many lost homes, family, friends, some were tortured and martyred – but in the middle of their pain and fear, Jesus, through Mark’s gospel, tells them succinctly and adamantly: “Watch!”
Why does Jesus tell them to ‘watch’? What are they to ‘watch for’? What does watching do?
I’d like to suggest two reasons why we would be wise to follow Jesus’ instruction to ‘watch’ in the context of our own fear and pain.
Firstly, watching takes our focus off of ourselves. Our tendency in hard times is to shift into survival mode – we put up barriers between ourselves and others, we close ourselves off. We’re afraid that someone may ask us about our pain, something may be said that would set us off. Every minute we may have for reflection we try to fill up with other things – be it with busyness or guilt and fear. Henri Nouwen talks about this phenomena in his book, “Turn my Mourning into Dancing”:
“Part of our waiting and watching and serving has to do with first becoming seers, people who discern the coming of God into our midst and in our world. Is there a space in your life where the Spirit of God has a chance to speak or act or show up? To be contemplative means to peel off the blindfolds that keep us from seeing his coming in us and around us. It means to learn to listen in the spaces of quiet we leave for God and thereby know how better to relate to the world around us. Recently I spend some time walking in New York City. I realized how most places are filled up with other things…We seem to have a fear of empty spaces…We want to fill up what is empty. Our lives stay very full. And when we are not blinded by busyness, we fill our inner space with guilt about things of the past or worries about things to come.” (41-42)
If our hearts and minds are too full, too self-focussed, we are ill equipped to hear the voice of God that would speak to us in our pain and call us to reach out to others. This is the second effect of ‘watching’ – it is an attentiveness to God that creates an opportunity for us to find Christ, even in the dark times.
Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, early in his life faced a great hardship. Before he was to be founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius was a war-wounded soldier. The year 1521 found him recovering at his home in northern Spain from grave injuries suffered during the battle of Pamplona. Those many months of convalescence proved to be a journey of healing not just for his body but also his soul. Ignatius documented his conversion experience in letters, an autobiography and the Spiritual Exercises. They would become the foundations of Ignatian spirituality. Through being attentive to Christ in the midst of his suffering Ignatius learned to ‘find God in all things.’ He came to the understanding that there are forces at work in the world, and in his own soul that would lead him into the darkness of sin and despair, and there is a power at work that would draw him to the light of grace.
My friends, we must watch for Christ’s coming into the world. Because Christ is always coming – he comes in a kind word timely spoken, he comes in the hug of a child to comfort the aged, he comes in those moments where the richness and beauty of music and art is perceived, he comes when a stranger reaches out to someone in need, when the poor and broken open their hearts to a compassionate soul. He comes when his people gather together, his Word is proclaimed, his praises are sung, and when we turn to him in prayer.
And one day he will come in all his glory to completely restore his broken creation. One day he will set everything straight. But if we do not watch for him now, we will not be ready to recognize his coming in the future. One man once said, “Those who know the path to God, can find it in the dark.” Whatever darkness you find yourself in today, may your vision be shaped by the pattern of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, so that you may be attentive to Christ’s Spirit at work in and through you, overcoming the darkness of pain and despair, and lifting you into Christ’s glorious presence.
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
From the Cutting Room Floor:
"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Helen Keller
“In the apocalyptic vision they found a reason for Jesus’ suffering and their own…as well as a promise that their suffering would soon end in glory (as they believed Jesus’ suffering did)…The conviction that they world would be transformed and that they would reign with the risen Jesus in glory gave them a horizon of hope against which they could interpret their present sufferings, and the insistence on constant vigilance helped them to find significance and ethical direction in their actions in the present.” (Sacra Pagina, 382)
On Isaiah:
“After that traumatic Babylonian incursion in 598 BC and after another in 587 BC, the city remained at best a shabby destabilized community that evidenced none of the splendour of God’s promises. In that season of shabbiness and failure, Isaiah invites us to ponder Jerusalem, to grieve its loss, but more important, to anticipate a restored, renovated, revivified Jerusalem. We are drawn into the reality of grief and hope. The buoyant expectation of the Isaiah tradition is grounded not in perceived reality, but in the promises of God, which can be trusted and which continue to prevail in every circumstance.” (Walter Bruggemann)
Someone asked C.S. Lewis, "Why do the righteous suffer?" "Why not?" he replied. "They're the only ones who can take it."
John Donne, a 17th century poet, experienced great pain. Because he married the daughter of a disapproving lord, he was fired from his job as assistant to the Lord Chancellor, yanked from his wife, and locked in a dungeon. (This is when he wrote that succinct line of despair, "John Donne/ Anne Donne/ Undone.") Later, he endured a long illness which sapped his strength almost to the point of death. In the midst of this illness, Donne wrote a series of devotions on suffering which rank among the most poignant meditations on the subject. In one of these, he considers a parallel: The sickness which keeps him in bed forces him to think about his spiritual condition. Suffering gets our attention; it forces us to look to God, when otherwise we would just as well ignored Him.
Adapted from PhilipYancey, Where is God When it Hurts?, p. 58.
When I hear my friends say they hope their children don't have to experience the hardships they went through--I don't agree. Those hardships made us what we are. you can be disadvantaged in many ways, and one way may be not having had to struggle.
William M. Batten, Fortune.
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