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St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, November 27, 2005

Advent One

Be Patient. Christ is Coming. – Rev. David Mundy

Isaiah 64:1-9 Mark 13:24-37

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I have a confession to make this morning. I am not always a patient person! This admission will come as no surprise to my wife and children but I suppose public confession is good for the soul.

I think that my impatient nature came home to me one day when I was waiting for the microwave oven to heat up my lunch. As we all know, the microwave speeds up the process of cooking food so we can get our meals quicker. The day I realized that I am patience-challenged I was standing in front of this supposed time-saver muttering “c’mon, c’mon,” as though it would make a difference. I actually opened the door a few seconds before the timer finished, and I realized that it wasn’t the first time. In fact, I nearly always cheat the clock, for what reason I’m really not sure.

How many of us are impatient people? We live in a culture which encourages us to be in a hurry, and we see it everywhere. We drive on highways where so many seem desperate to get from one place to another, even if it puts others at risk. Even when winter storms arrive people are dangerously impatient.

We want our information and communication in a hurry, so we carry around our cell phones and our blackberries for the “convenience,” although we realize these tools which are for the most part beneficial can became demanding and oppressive.

We get our food in packages so we can prepare it and consume it as fast as possible. Now, if we choose, we can buy our salads in a bag, something which to me seemed ridiculous to begin with but has crept into our household as well.

Need I point out that we even get in a terrible rush toward Christmas, which is supposedly the celebration of a simple birth in a barn long ago. Because Christmas has been coopted by the advertisers and the retailers it is “lights, cameras, action, the Xmas party has begun!” long before the event. Because of the secular pressure our religious holiday can take on a frenetic quality with congregations trying to figure out how to attract the crowds as early and often as possible.

This morning we will try a different approach. We will start again in the Christian year with four weeks of waiting and watching which we call Advent. Advent says to us “hold on a minute, where are you going in such a hurry?” As the weeks of this season unfold we consider and savour the hope, the peace, the joy and love of Christ. The author Jan Richardson says it well:

THE SEASON of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before¼¼ .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's [back] fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.

So the readings for the first few weeks of this season don’t say a thing about a baby in a manger or shepherds and magi. They all tell us to prepare and to wait with anticipation for the God of justice and new life.

Today we heard from what sounds like an impatient prophet, Isaiah, who want God to come and shake up the world and its peoples: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence...to make your name known to your adversaries...” But the prophet calms down and concedes: “From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.”

Be patient! Christmas is coming! Be patient! Christ is coming! Some things and some people are worth the wait. The rising of a loaf of bread and the fragrant time of baking are worth the wait.

The birth of a child is worth the wait. This year some families in our congregation have gone through challenging pregnancies with a fair amount of uncertainty. One of our newborns got a bit impatient and came early, but there was still that period of waiting and wondering.

There are a number of families here at St. Paul’s who have adopted children and I was reminded not long ago that the period of expectant waiting in this process often exceeds the nine months of pregnancy and requires a great deal of patience.

We may not always want to wait, but when we anticipate the positive outcome we can accept that “time between.” Our waiting as the people of Christ is not senseless. It is not a waste of time. Many of you will have seen or heard of the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for Godot. The play is really two men, two tramps, waiting restlessly, foolishly, for someone who never comes. Godot actually means “little god” and it is may be Beckett’s comment on the senselessness of waiting for a god who never arrives, although he has insisted that the play is not about God..

As Christians we actually learn patience as the way of discipleship. There are always critics who argue that expecting God to be active in this world is senseless and that the death of Jesus was the end. There are others who are constantly predict the end of the world and Christ’s return.

As Christ’s followers we choose another way. We look for the signs of new life and hope even in the darkness and dreariness of our world’s winter. We are not waiting for godot – for the God who never arrives. And we are not just waiting for Christmas, with all its commercial overtones. We are waiting for Jesus who was an infant, born in a barn, but he was so much more. Jesus was the prophet and the preacher and the redeeming Christ who changed the course of human history.

In the passage our gospel reading comes from Jesus also paints a rather ominous picture of the world to begin with, warning against false prophets with their dire predictions, and then speaking of dark days ahead. Then he offers the hopeful image of the fig tree which puts forth its buds before the leaves unfold. When you see these signs, Jesus says, spring is upon you and summer is not far off.

Reading this passage struck home because these past few weeks we have mentioned the soon-to-be- released film, The Chronicles of Narnia,, based on one of the children’s books also written in the nineteen fifties by the British author, C.S. Lewis. I reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on the plane to Vancouver a few weeks ago and was reminded that the story involves the journey or four children, brothers and sisters, who travel into a land of eternal snow ruled by an evil witch who travels about in a sleigh driven by a dwarf. The time comes though when the snow begins to melt and changes are seen all around. The creatures of Narnia are sure that Aslan, the lion who once ruled must be in the land:

A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travellers. The trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered with green...soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate, transparent leaves... "This is no thaw," said the dwarf, suddenly stopping. "This is Spring.”

Of course for the White Witch this is bad news, but for the creatures and the Pevensey children the prospect that Aslan is on the move is the source of hope. It seems to me that Lewis, a Christian, is echoing Jesus. It is essential for us to believe that Christ is on the move in the world.

I have no idea whether Jesus believed that after his death and resurrection he would return to be with his disciples and other followers during their lifetimes. It might be that when the gospel of Mark was written nearly a generation after Jesus’ departure those same followers decided that Jesus had promised to come back soon and they desperately needed that hope in the face of persecution.

The simple math tells us that there have been upwards of one hundred generations since those days following Easter and still no sign of Jesus. When I’m asked if Jesus will return I try to honestly answer that I am open to that possibility but I can’t be sure. But that may not be Jesus’ intention at all. As Jan Richardson says, we can so easily miss the signs of Christ’s coming when in truth Jesus has been present in every generation for those willing to see and hear. Jesus comes to us over and over again through the signs of hope in our world.

According to another gospel, the gospel of John, Jesus says to his followers at their last supper together, the meal which we will commemorate this morning, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me; because I live, you also will live.”