Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.
At this time of year, Black Friday has become a discomforting feature of retail trends.
Let’s name it as it is: something that plays to dark instincts of greed. It takes its place alongside other gloom-ridden, quasi-apocalyptic days.
Black Thursday: the first day of stock market crash of 1929, which led to the Great Depression.
Black Wednesday: Britain’s departure for the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.
Black Friday: the US import marking a day of frenzied discounted consumption; unplanned spending and bargain hunting; marketing hype, impulse buys and debt.
Some independent bookstores have chosen to shun to Black Friday; instead they embraced Civilised Saturday. For bibliophiles, it promises a more restful shopping experience with the added value of knowledgeable staff and special events.
We too are to dispel the darkness of Black Friday. At the dawning of a new year, we are to embrace a live giving alternative.
At Advent, we begin at the end: we begin with the consummation of a promise in love.
Because love wins, we are called to a pattern of life which expresses gratitude rather than greed.
To begin at the end demands a change of heart; a shift in our attention towards God.
In Advent are invited to be.
To be still. To watch. To wait.
Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.
It would be understandable if on Advent Sunday we focused on political upheavals at home or abroad. 2016 has been marked by significant questions of truth, expertise, popularism and identity.
We live in times dominated by uprisings, terror, war, and rumours of war; we hear of famines, earthquakes and a changing climate. No wonder such events are read as ‘signs of the end times’.
To watch and wait might seem counter intuitive.
When events are alarming, unpredictable and destabilising, there is a time to lament and protest - our psalms and prayers give voice to that. But Jesus calls us to a spirit of watchfulness which resists false expectations, which rests in the assurance that God will come.
Jesus urges us to be awake. To be attentive to God.
In the face of global disruption, we are challenged to look into our own hearts.
That’s why Advent is so alarming.
Are we ready? Have we prepared ourselves? Will we be caught unawares?
We confront the reality of the breaking in of God’s love: the Alpha and Omega, who was and is and is to come.
We pray with St Augustine:
Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.
We come to Jesus in the hope that he’ll rouse us from sleep: that our hearts might be directed to God in worship; that the Spirit might kindle in our hearts the fire of love; that our wills and desires might be directed to ways of peace.
We know not the hour of our own death nor the time of Christ’s return. Yet Paul does not despair as if we are living in uncertainty. Rather it’s the opposite; life has a greater clarity and meaning and purpose. Jesus came to us in humility; he will come again in glory. In baptism, are caught up in that process of transformation. Christ brings the ultimate regime change from darkness to light; from night to day.
If we are alert to the nearness of God, we live in his light. To live in light means that we lay aside the stuff of Black Friday: the need to gratify temporal desires; jealously, quarrelling and the revelling are distractions.
The alternative is to walk in the light of the Lord: the hope of the prophet Isaiah has been fulfilled; live that reality.
As we open doors on our Advent Calendar, we are intentionally making space for God. As we walk in the light, pray that we might act with wisdom, embody hope and be alert to love. That is certainly the aim of our cathedral calendar - inviting us to hear and respond to God’s story as we wait.
We continue to pray: Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.
Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel both alarm us and give us hope. The task of disciple is to live by faith - that means refusing to live by fear and embracing life lived in loving obedience to God. Just like Isaiah and Paul, we are in this for the long haul. We are to embody the love of God. By witnessing, in the power of the Spirit, to that love made manifest in the humility of Jesus.
But what of Jesus’ words about division, separation and the brutal disruption of daily life?
Jesus uses dramatic and apocalyptic language to convey the urgency of the situation and the demands of the challenge he presents to us. We are called to be ready and prepared; we do not know how much time is left to us here on earth. We are to use the time that we have to an active waiting on God, which makes hope possible.
All this is summed up in the imperative: keep awake!
The Eucharist in which we share, restores our hope in God’s kingdom. We hear of God’s work of creation and redemption; of love which patiently reaches out to us in love. Here we come to the one who is to come; here we lament and repent; here we are forgiven and sent out.
Here receive what we are, and become what we receive: the Body of Christ. And bodies live and move and breath and act in the world. We are a body called to both hope and patience - in world which is often devoid of the former and which has no time for the latter.
As the Body of Christ, our lives are woven into the world in the ordinary and complex negotiations of our common life. Like the prophets, we are to be alert to the signs of the kingdom.
Living with hope and patience is to walk in the light: it is to keep our eyes fixed on God and to practice his acts of mercy. We are to show loving kindness and extend hospitality; in so doing we become a sign of God’s kingdom, walking in Jesus steps.
Lord Jesus our Saviour, the One who is to come, we come to you now.
Our hearts are cold; Lord, warm them by your selfless love.
Our hearts are sinful; cleanse them with your precious blood.
Our hearts are weak; strengthen them with your joyous Spirit.
Our hearts are empty; fill them with your divine presence.
Come, Emmanuel: enter our lives, possess them always and only for yourself.
© Julie Gittoes 2016
