Advent Sunday: Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark 13:24-end
Stay Alert: Back in May, after three months of being told to ‘stay at home’, the government introduced a new slogan. Stay alert. Stay alert to control the virus and save lives.
Some, including Scotland’s First Minister, said that they didn’t know what ‘stay alert’ meant. It was seen as too vague, imprecise and unenforceable. Some turned created their own parodies of the campaign.
Other’s explained what alert meant: staying at home as much as possible; limiting contact with others; keeping our distance; wearing masks; washing our hands.
Perhaps we’ve swung between being hyper-vigilant and feeling complacent? What does it mean for us to stay alert in this season - as SAGE issues advice on avoiding board-games and recommends meeting households outside?
Advent takes up this theme of staying alert and redirects it.
Staying alert is combined with a longing of God’s presence; a longing for God to act to bring hope and justice; for suffering to end.
It is perhaps in a time such as this that we are more receptive to the themes of Advent, to the vivid imagery laced with judgement.
Isaiah expresses that longing for God’s presence vividly; his words cry out for God’s decisive action:
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence.
It’s a passage full of awareness of God’s awesome deeds and power; of fires kindled; of creation quaking and human beings trembling.
Isaiah paints a picture of a God who is powerful - and asks why don’t we turn to him? Why don’t we call upon the name of God of devotion, remembering acts of deliverance; out of obedience and gladly doing right?
Why don’t we call upon God out of an awareness of iniquity, that is being alert to the ways in which the world is out of kilter?
The 19th century painter, John Martin produced vibrant canvases which he gave colour and drama to themes. His work depicts the ways human desires turn away from God chasing after the fleeting and dazzling prizes of this world; he depicts the way the world is shaken up, refined and restored by the blazing and dazzling fire of God’s love.
John Martin: works at The Tate
Yet the language of judgement - this longing for God’s coming into our midst - makes no sense without an awareness of God’s mercy.
We are to call upon God’s name because we know it: we know it in our hearts and on our lips; we know it from the moment we were created out of dust and earth; from the moment we drew breath:
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
God at the heart of this world holding us and shaping us: holding the suffering and pain; transforming it with the sheer energy of mercy that God’s very self brings into our midst.
In the words of Martin Luther King, it’s a challenge that although: ‘we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.’
We face the disappointments of criticism and illness; of disappointments and loss. And yet, and yet, we are still invited to place our trust in the God who loves us. Who considers us all a people who are precious.
The cry goes up to God: we are your people!
Image from the Hubble Telescope
Heavens: At the beginning of this new church year, we begin to focus on Mark’s Gospel; we recall that he was writing to a Christian community facing fear, uncertainty and disillusionment.
The threats facing us might be different - the social, relational, economic and cultural impact of lockdowns and tiers; the concerns triggered by a virus, but a global pandemic which has changed our life locally.
But perhaps the impact is the same: it feels as if the world as we know it is being shaken.
The first hearers of the passage read to us today, would have related the cosmic imagery that Jesus uses to their own political upheavals. The fall of Jerusalem, the disruption of familiar world order; dynamics of power and loss.
It is in this context that Jesus call his followers, including us, to be alert: for although it might feel that poverty, oppression, and pandemic have the last word, he is pointing us to God’s sovereignty.
It might seem as if the heavens are in upheaval; that the sun and moon are being cast aside; but this powerful language points to God’s reign. A reign of greater light and love and hope.
To quote Martin Luther King again: ‘Only in the darkness can you see the stars.’
God’s presence is near to us; we must remain alert.
Fig Tree: Jesus points to the fig tree and invites us to read the world just as we read the changing of the seasons.
The changing of the seasons are disruptive; processes are at work, seen and unseen.
This Advent, we are to look with honesty at the world we live in; the sadness the loss, the confusion and the disruption. But we are also to look towards the hope of a world we would like to be part of, that we long for; that we want to see brought to brith in our midst.
We are to be alert.
To look for signs of God’s reign.
To draw strength and comfort and hope from the nearness of God’s presence.
To trust in the turning of the seasons; the hope of the world to come.
The world is pregnant with the new life that God wants to bring to birth; but there are labour pains too.
Jesus: For Jesus came with a promise of regime change - for was Rowan Williams reminds us in his little book on Mark’s Gospel, that is the force of the euvangelion, or good news.
When we are tempted to despair of our political discourse or the behaviour of the human race, we are to go back to that good news. As Michelle Obama once put it, when they go low, we go high.
We go high because the face of Jesus Christ reminds us that there is justice and mercy.
He speaks and acts for the poor; for freedom; for life.
He is God’s presence with us; calling us to be alert.
To be courageous and to treat others with the dignity they have as children of God; he enlists our help and demands that we take a side in this world.
His face turns us from despair, resignation, indifference or even cynicism.
That our faces might be written with love and mercy; that our lives might seek after justice and compassion.
Light: Keep awake; be alert; God is with us.
This Advent: let us not act as if God is hidden from us, but lift our cries to God and live as people of light.
The person of hope is the person who waits; who sees the light shining ever more brightly in the darkness.
Waiting. Trusting.
For God will make all things new; and that work of renewal begins in us.
Expectantly we wait for God is faithful.
In darkness we see signs of salvation.
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
Our God has sent his only son
Awake our hearts to sing your praise
Our Lord has come to change the world
To change our hearts
© Julie Gittoes
