Shock of hope

 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.’

Interior of Notre Dame: image US News 

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

The One who is to come

This is the text of a sermon preached at Guildford Cathedral on Advent Sunday. The texts were: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-end; Matthew 24:36-44. It was one of those sermons which didn't seem to settle... the more I grappled with it and as I pondered the texted, it felt more mysterious and paradoxical. Our meeting for lectio before the service helped hugely - and I owe to Donald and Canon Andrew insights about beginning at the end and the consummation of love. Reading texts together is a powerful gift of time, attention and meaning; a good habit of Advent! Ultimately, words of a prayer attributed to St Augustine acted as a pulse to the sermon - Jesus, the one who was and is and is to come.

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