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Advent. We Begin Again.

 

The First Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the Christian year; the time when we wait and prepare for the coming of the Son of God.

Advent is one of those seasons of the church year when we become conscious of TIME itself, and its sacredness.

Now, most of the time we don’t think of time as sacred.

If we think about the concept of time at all, we mostly think of it as a commodity, something to be bought and sold, something to be used up or wasted, something to be measured to the most precise degree. For most of us, time is something we never have enough of.

Even in the Church itself, the concept of time as a commodity rules our lives.

Think of trying to set up a meeting. Out come the calendars and the lengthy process of negotiating begins. It seems that there is never a good time for a meeting or an event, so pressing on us are the demands of time.

Time is always precious, even in the Church; seldom, though it is sacred.

A couple of hours (or so) on a Sunday morning is sacred—maybe enough time to squeeze in two services and church school—but rarely more than that.

Advent though is different.

Advent calls us to consider time in a new way.

Advent calls us to consider the ways in which we measure time, the ways we think of time, the way we use our time. The coming of the Christian new year makes us realize that time, for us, is different, somehow…that it is not a straight line originating somewhere in the haze of history and stretching off into the mist of the future.

As Christians, we do not live on a timeline: we live inside the great wheel of sacred time.

Advent, at least in the northern hemisphere, comes at the point in the year when we see around us a landscape that seems to be dead. The views out of the windows open up with green leaves gone and the frozen ground covered in a blanket of dead leaves, or snow. Darkness comes early and stays late.

Isaiah’s cry, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” has resonance at times like this. Oh, that you would tear open the heavens, Lord God, and let in a little light and warmth!

It is no accident that the prophets speak most clearly to us at this time of the year.

 The ancient fears of the death of the sun rise in our hearts in this time of dark days; the ancient fear that things might always be like this: dark and cold and dead. We look for reassurance that things will come alive again. Here in this time of cold and dark we wait for news that we are NOT on a timeline heading inexorably off to we-know-not-where; but that things will come around again, that the light and warmth will return.

We look for consolation, that the wheel will again turn, that hope is alive when the world around us seems to be slowly dying. Time seems out of control at times like this, beyond our power to measure and predict. We feel ourselves at the mercy of time, vulnerable somehow, only a part of God’s creation and less sure of our own control.

At times like this, when we feel our own impotence in the face of powers around us, powers that we cannot control, the idea of sacred time again becomes real.

Somehow, we are more able to grasp the idea of time as circular.

The seasons change on God’s timetable and not on our own. We recognize our dependence on God’s will for us. We hear (and recognize) in the prophet’s words our utter dependence on God’s will, and how far we have strayed from that will.

For all of us, at this time of the year, even in the mall where the lights twinkle brightly, the tinsel glitters, and the strains of Silent Night become just background noise, we are conscious that something is missing. Something is not right. The pre-Christmas rush seems a little sordid, and yet we let ourselves be pushed to our limits by it anyway.

The pre-Christmas timeline becomes like a roller-coaster swooping and dipping as our heads spin. Some of us yearn to get off this madly rushing train, but we are strapped in for the ride, victims of the machinery which seems to have little reference to God—or God’s son whose birth we are awaiting.

Advent, for us who keep the Christian year, is the antidote to the madness of the mall: that straight line to Christmas and the madly rushing train which rides on it.

Advent is the time when the prophets call us to take stock — of ourselves, to decide how ready we are for the coming of the Christ child…and not in terms of whether the presents are bought and the turkey stuffed.

Advent is sacred time, God’s time, time to get ready for the return of the Light.

Advent is the time for listening to the prophets who tell us how far we have strayed from God’s plan for us, and for sincere and prayerful change.

For us, who live in this part of the globe in darkness at this time of the year, this is especially acute. No matter the twinkling lights and the glitter in the mall, the darkness is out there, all around us.

We would do well to heed the prophets now. They tell us what is missing—and it is terrifying. They tell us how far we have strayed from the loving circle of God’s sacred time. They call us back into that circle from the darkness.

We would do well to heed them, especially at this time of year when the wheel is turning again, and the child is waiting to be born.

We would do well to get off that train rushing headlong towards December 25th. We would do well to spend time reading the prophecies and pray for the birth of the child again—to make ready, in our hearts and homes, a place for that child who comes again in power and great glory, as Matthew tells us he will.

We would do well to begin again in this Advent season: to look clearly into the darkness and cold and pray—and work—for a decent, warm, and orderly place to receive the baby.

We would do well to make ready in our hearts and minds a place for the Christ Child to come once again.

This is the task of Advent (indeed of all our time) as Christians. The prophets are right: we must be ready, and the time is short!

Norman+