1st December Advent Sunday 2024: Jeremiah 33:14-16,
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 Luke 21:25-36
‘Nous y sommes’, here we are, said President Macron as he posted a video clip of Notre Dame. He also addressed over a thousand specialist artisans who’d worked on the restored cathedral. He said: ‘the shock of the reopening will be as great as that of the fire, but it will be a shock of hope.’
We long for a shock of hope. Jesus’ words might resonate with the newsreels: the earth in distress, heavens shaking, waters raging and people fainting in fear.
Nous y sommes, here we are. Jesus doesn’t invite us to look away from the disruption, pain or confusion, but to be present in it, even to seek the nearness of God in the midst of it; to find within reality the shock of hope.
Jesus’ words convey urgency, the references sound cryptic and the scope is cosmic. He calls his hearers to attention by using startling images and rhetorical devices. In the face of chaos and uncertainty, we are to be alert, to be ready and to look.
Advent begins in the dark, it acknowledges where things fall apart - and yet draws us into life and restores hope. The promise of justice and mercy will not pass away. There is redemption and it is near.
For all the dramatic images, we’re invited to embrace Jesus now, to encounter his love today. We are to find encouragement in this as we seek to be faithful to God in the present, in our local.
His arrival is and will be a word of hope to us. Here we are: invited into a way of living that holds some kind of common ground in the face of uncertainty.
We are invited to dwell in the truth and that takes courage. We see the world as it is - to be honest about the pain, questions and fears. This might lead us to lament rather than cheap cheer; it might motivate us to seek after justice rather than escapism; it might move us to compassion rather than indifference. Truth seeks change, renewal; it dares to hope.
We are invited to wait and to long for what is not yet here. We sit in darkness, longing for light. As we wait, we notice what we really want to be different; desires to see an end to loneliness and hunger.
In the dark, things break open and grow; seeds and bulbs long buried in soil root and push new life to the surface. Perhaps we too are being remade, our longings reshaped; being obedient to God’s ways of life and love; as we long for what is possible.
Honest waiting is an invitation to pay attention. It is to notice the details, to see where life might be bursting forth in bud and leaf. As seasons shift, what do we glimpse in our own hearts - what is giving energy, or joy; what do we let go of?
As we go about our lives, our work, what do we notice in our households or communities? The voices we need to hear or the needs we can meet; the opportunity to be present with another.
Nous y somme. Here we are.
Waiting. Paying attention. Honestly. Dare we imagine?
Dare we hold our longings and sorrows together with the compassion of a God who comes to us in Christ; the one who brings the shock of hope?
The one who was born in a small town on the edge of an empire long passed as brought us a sure hope, here and now. In him is justice, healing, mercy - a profound hope in the face of all that is tense and uncertain.
It is his judgement that grounds our hope.
The prophet Jeremiah writes of hope and consolation. He is unafraid to remind us of the consequences of failing to love God and neighbour, and reminds us that an alternative future is possible.
Jeremiah invites us to judge those systems or patterns of life that deny justice or extinguish the possibility of compassion. A hopeful future is built on noticing what is out of kilter, critiquing it and seeking to bring change.
We do this placing our trust in the one who is our righteousness: the Lord who was, who is and is to come. Jesus is the one who brings justice and healing - who calls us to seek a kinder, fairer, more compassionate and just society.
The letter to the Thessalonians reminds us that such hope is rooted in the pursuit of peace, joy and love; for those qualities to be made known within the reality of human lives in community.
In a time of waiting, Paul sees the Christian community in that place as a source of joy as well as hope. Even in the face of affliction, they had sought to live in peace, prompting each other to acts of goodness.
As he prays for them, Paul asks that love might increase and abound in them. Love is the source of our hope, the well-spring of joy and the grounds of peace. It is the greatest gift - the character of God reflected in human lives.
To echo another letter, such love is patient, generous and kind. Love is not stubborn, selfish or rude. Love hopes all things. Love is the shock of hope - loving each other, being able to accept we are loved. It is a shock of hope - loving the world in its pain and confusion, its contradictions and beauty.
Nous y sommes. Here we are.
Advent is a rich season: it reminds us to look with honesty at the world, and invites us to wait with courage and imagination, with patience and longing. When hearts are fearful and the earth is distressed - Jesus reminds us of the shock of hope.
A hope not simply in a restored cathedral, but in the building up of a body committed to courageous love. To be present in the world as it is because it is precisely here that God dwells with us. To see the depth and the darkness and notice what is growing, slowly. To yearn for it and to imagine it - something beautiful, something that heals the world, is waiting to be born.
© Julie Gittoes 2024
