Advent 1 - Keep Awake and Be Ready

36 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Advent is perhaps one of the most counter-cultural times of year for the Christian Church. We take the four weeks leading up to Christmas Day and we embrace a call to stop, to slow down, to watch carefully, and to wait.

Waiting is something that we don’t expect to do much in our world these days. At least not for what we want. We have 2 day shipping from Amazon — the expectation is your package will arrive right away. No more “please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.” We have on demand streaming movies — I want to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire right now…so I will. No more going to the video store, hoping its in stock. You can even order your Grande Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks right on your phone, so you don’t have to wait when you get to the shop. In fact, the coffee will be waiting for you, with your name on it, hot and ready to go! No more waiting in line, no more small talk with the cashier or barista. No more waiting.

And so for the church pause and wait, in the midst of all the hustle and bustle and jingle and jangle of December, is quite counterintuitive. It is not what we are trained for, not how we have been formed.

Which takes me to an even deeper question — what is forming us?

Almost 10 years ago, I entered into a period of pretty deep spiritual and personal reflection. Following what had been one of the toughest years of our life, when my wife had cancer, I entered a mode of introspection and asked a lot of questions about my life and my faith. And through this process, I rediscovered the vibrance and vitality that can be found in the practicing of the Christian liturgical year, noting the ebb and flow of seasons as they relate to the story of Jesus. It became something of a fascination for me — Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Easter, Pentecost — the whole cycle.

By investing time and study of the Scriptures, I began to realize that I was being “formed” by it all. The practice of noticing the change in seasons and how it prompted reflection and devotion. The way the Scriptures unfolded week after week in a rhythmic telling of the story of Jesus — a story that starts with anticipation, continues in the celebration of his birth, then tells of his life and miraculous ministry, leads to the ultimate turning point of the cross and resurrection, and then opens up into a global movement of Christ’s power and love to all people. It’s a cycle that forms us, that invites us to remember each year the way of Jesus’ life and to be invited to participate in it ourselves.

And so, once more, this day, we enter into the story again. Happy New Year, by the way — today, the first Sunday of Advent, marks the beginning of the Christian liturgical cycle.

And also, by the way, liturgical is a fun word. The word liturgy means “the work of the people.” It is applied to the liturgy of our gathered worship here, this “work of the people” that we do each time we gather in Jesus’ name. And it refers to our “work” in the world, as people formed as disciples of the Christ, the work we live out in service and prayer and compassion and love to God and neighbor each day. All of life is liturgy, we are always working unto something.

And to be rooted in the Christian liturgical cycle is to root our lives in the grand story of God’s love in all that we do. We can allow this rhythm to form us, to tell our story too, both individually and collectively as the church.

We enter into this counter-cultural, counterintuitive season of Advent to first, before anything, learn to wait and keep watch for the signs of God’s coming among us.

Let’s talk more about waiting. And let’s do so by returning to this morning’s Gospel text.

First, we need to notice that this text is not some grand announcement that Christ has arrived, a trumpet blaring and announcing the king. Rather, it is a warning about being watchful.

Matthew reminds his hearers of how the people in Noah’s time, before the flood, had forgotten how to pay attention. They heard the warnings about the flood from Noah, but they did not pay attention, were not awake to the gravity of what was coming, to their demise. Matthew reminds us of this so that we take seriously the warning for readiness in Christ’s coming again.

This is a text of apocalypse — a text of unveiling or revealing what will be and telling us the truth about how we must live in anticipation.

Remember, we don’t like to wait. Waiting can look like being watchful while you prepare your food, as the women grinding their meal together. Waiting can look like attentiveness while you go about your work, like the men out in the field gathering grain. Waiting doesn’t look like standing watch for a thief, because the time of their arrival is unpredictable — waiting looks like being prepared and making your home secure so the thief cannot enter.

Waiting, in this context, looks like being ready.

I want to link a couple things for us at this point.

We remember that we have, in our culture especially, forgotten how to wait. Ok, I’ll wait 2 days, but no more for my books from Amazon. 2 days is all I can bear. Oh boy, if the internet twitches and I have to wait 45 seconds for my streaming moving to come back, whew…that’s almost too much waiting for me.

We will wait, but only on our terms.

And so we buy Nexus passes to get through the border faster, we pay for the express lane so we can get down the road faster, we pay for expedited boarding so we can get onto our plane faster. We will wait, but only on our terms.

Let’s link this with the work of the people, the liturgy. As I said, the liturgical cycle has been something that has formed me, it’s worked its way into the cracks of my soul, into my body, in a way that I move with it and cycle with it and respond to the seasons because of it, responding to the places in Christ’s story that each day invites me to remember.

And in this moment in the cycle, this Advent — we are invited to wait and anticipate Christ’s coming.

To a people who wait, only on our terms…this is troublesome. It’s uncomfortable. We are invited into a season that calls us to be watchful and when we try to do this, we can feel the pull.

We want resolution, we want to get to the point, we want the dissonant chord that is playing to resolve into sweet Christmas carols and something more tonally pleasing.

It is so fun to practice the season of Advent as a father of a 5 year old. If you want to see what it is like to witness waiting and all the struggle of it embodied…watch a 5 year old eye the packages that begin to accumulate under a Christmas tree.

In our house, we decorate for the Advent and Christmas seasons during the week of Thanksgiving. So, this morning, my house is full on Christmasy. We have our Advent wreath out. We have our tree lit up. Christmas dishes are in use and now that its December I am officially ok with us listening to Christmas music.

Stacy, my wife, is remarkable. In all her project managing and administrative glory, has already completed Christmas shopping for our family, as well. I “help”, but really it’s all her, with vision and tenacity and a goal of being done by December.

And so, back to having a 5 year old at this time of year — our tree has presents under it right now.

To learn to wait, to practice watchfulness, to be patient and anticipate — watch a 5 year old consider a tree and presents for 25 days!

You may say, “oh that’s torture, that’s not fair!” But the brilliant piece of it is that he, as we all are capable of, is able to experience the joy of waiting. He wants to know what’s coming, what’s in the packages, sure, but he is also not trained in the way of getting what he wants on his own terms yet…at least not as much as we are. I can see in his eyes the joy of anticipation. I can see what it means to wait well and know that something is coming.

That, my friends, is what we are invited to in this season. To wait. To anticipate Christ coming. And to let it build up in us.

Back, once more to the images from this morning’s Gospel text. The men in the field and the women at the grindstone — one is taken and one will be left.

Let’s think for a moment — if you heard this story, told by Jesus, about the coming of the Messiah…and then you went out into your field or to your grindstone or back to work or home to your family…wouldn’t you experience life differently?

Put another way — if you knew that something so amazing, so glorious, so incredible was coming, was on the horizon, but you didn’t know when it would arrive…wouldn’t your body, your soul, your spirit be heightened? Activated? Aroused and awake and aware? When will He arrive? Don’t blink or you might miss it.

This is what we are invited to in Advent — this heightened state of awareness. This wild anticipation that something is coming, something that will change everything, something that will open up our lives and our stories in ways we could never imagine.

Someone who hears Matthews Gospel must also hear it within the context of Isaiah’s prophecy, which we also heard this morning:

Revised Common Lectionary First Sunday of Advent

2In days to come

the mountain of the LORD’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised above the hills;

all the nations shall stream to it.

3Many peoples shall come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

4He shall judge between the nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more.

5O house of Jacob,

come, let us walk

in the light of the LORD!

If you heard this and you knew that the arrival of Christ would usher in this kind of goodness and restoration for your people — would not your whole body and being be awakened and heightened and watchful?

This — this — is what we are invited to in Advent. Not some kind of quiet dark longing. Not numbed out by the glitz and lights and egg nog and noise.

Fully awake. Fully alive. Like a candle wick lit up in a dark night. Burning with hope that when Christ comes, we might witness the true restoration of all things. That justice and peace might reign. That love and redemption might be our way.

And so, as a church…we embrace this call to be awakened in Advent. To be watchful. To pay attention.

Do not be fooled by thinking you know the end of the story — that on December 25 it all resolves. You will be disappointed.

Rather — watch and wait. And discover that the unexpected might arrive, that you might encounter God’s presence in the midst of the waiting. That the Spirit might fall on you today, tomorrow, on December 27, and perhaps in the impossible moments before, after and all around these times.

To practice Advent waiting is to let ourselves be formed in a wholly different way, unto a wholly different story, than that of a whole that only waits on our own terms. We cycle through it again and again to remember, to be reminded, and to wake back up once more.