What Are We Waiting For?
Reflections on the First Sunday of Advent
RCL Advent 1C
2 December 2018
Holy Trinity Cathedral
New Westminster BC
As a boy growing up in the Episcopal Church during a time of transition from the Book of Common Prayer 1928 to the Book of Common Prayer 1979, I found Advent a somewhat confusing season. In the ‘old’ Prayer Book the readings for Advent seemed to have little if anything to do with preparing for the coming celebration of the birth of Jesus. On the First Sunday of Advent the gospel was Matthew’s account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the so-called ‘cleansing of the Temple’. On the following Sunday we heard Luke’s account of the signs of the second coming of Jesus, a bit more ‘Advent-y’ if I might say so. John the Baptist made an appearance on the Third Sunday, but only because Jesus asked people who did they think John was. Then on the Fourth Sunday John reappeared to tell everyone that he wasn’t the one they were looking for.
The prayers for each Sunday had a definite smell of fire and brimstone to them. We were frequently reminded that Jesus was coming again and he probably wasn’t very pleased with us. Some of my friends who were church-goers told me of the sermons their clergy preached on what were and are known as the ‘four last things’: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. From what my friends told me death, judgement and hell seemed to win out over heaven.
My confusion was no doubt reinforced by the ‘spirit of the season’ advertising that accompanied the seasonal television and music programming. The clergy of my youth were definitely not into anything ‘Christmas’ until Christmas Eve. All round me my less-churchy friends were getting into the swing of the ‘holidays’ while I was trying to protect my Advent virtue. Advent was more like a ‘little Lent’, so there were times when my friends must have thought me quite like Scrooge or the Grinch.
But with the movement towards the new Prayer Book and a new three-year lectionary, Advent began to make a bit more sense to me. Instead of Lenten purple, some parishes began to use various shades of blue, a colour often used in European culture to express expectation or waiting. The readings also began to give me a more coherent sense of what I was waiting for and how I was expected to wait.
In all three years of the lectionary we use, the First Sunday of Advent describes what it is that we, as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, are waiting for: the kingdom of God --- not to be confused with the kingdoms of this world, past, present and future. And on the Second and Third Sundays we learn that we are to be like John the Baptist, proclaiming the coming of the kingdom and calling upon human beings to metanoia, a Greek word that means ‘looking at the world from God’s perspective’ and living our lives as a reflection of that perspective. Then, on the Fourth Sunday, we learn that waiting for the kingdom of God means becoming ‘God-bearers’ in the fullness of our selves, our hearts and souls, our minds and strength.
We are waiting for the kingdom of God. That kingdom has been revealed in God’s relationship with the people of Israel over millennia and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. That kingdom is not an abstraction. It is the concrete realization in the lives of real people who live in real places and in real time of justice and righteousness, something that Jeremiah speaks of in today’s first reading. Justice and righteousness require fair and equitable relationships among people, impartial courts of law, the protection of the weak from the strong and the personal characteristics that make such conditions possible. [1] The kingdom of God is more than offer prayers and thoughts; it is about making choices that may cost us something in order that equity triumphs over inequity and that the weak, whatever form their weakness takes, are not taken advantage of by the strong.
But it is no secret that God’s kingdom has yet to arrive in its fullness. Why this is so remains a mystery and, at times, even a source of doubt and despair on the part of some people. Because the kingdom has not yet arrived, how we what for that kingdom is important, not only for ourselves as Christians, but for every human being.
One way of waiting is to adopt one of two forms of hopelessness. One expression of hopelessness is a despair born of believing that the tragedies and unfairness of our present world are inevitable. The only thing we can do is to endure and keep our heads down to avoid attracting any negative attention. Heaven becomes our reward for having to put up with life. You and I probably know people who live this way.
Another form of hopelessness can be seen in simple human greed and self-interest. I’ll grab what I can of the limited goods of life and I won’t be shy about making sure my wants, not my genuine needs, are satisfied. Greed and self-interest tell me that the future doesn’t matter because there isn’t a future worth waiting for. All that matters is the here and now and making sure that I get not just a fair share of the good things of life but an over-abundant share.
Our way of waiting is a waiting born of hopefulness. It is a waiting that leads us to make choices that contribute to equity and fairness, justice and righteousness. It is a waiting that recognizes that our shortcomings and our failures to embody the faith we proclaim do not lead us to despair but to renewal. It is a waiting that leads us to ask questions about how might we use the physical assets of this Cathedral Parish to build up both the community of faith and the community of New Westminster. It is a waiting that finds each candle of the Advent wreath a sign of the promised ‘peaceable kingdom’ spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.
So here we are again, lighting the candles of Advent and proclaiming the coming of a kingdom that many people have not seen and that some people cannot see. But I give thanks that I now have a clearer vision of what I am waiting for and how I am to wait for it. For the days are surely coming when justice and righteous will reign over all the earth. And for those days I shall wait with my head raised up and my hope undimmed. For I have seen the signs of the times and I am not afraid.
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