Advent 1,
Shelagh Balfour

JEREMIAH 33:14-16, PSALM 25:1-10, FIRST THESSALONIANS 3:9-13; LUKE 21:25-36

A week ago Saturday, I was shopping at our local Marks Clothing store. This store, along with most others, had embraced the concept of Black Friday, although they seemed to think it was a season and not a single day, and they had overwrought versions of Christmas songs playing at high volume over their speakers. The decorations were out and the Christmas season had begun.

Except, it hasn’t. The season of Advent begins only today and Christmas is still weeks away. As we consider these opposing approaches to time – the secular year and its consumer narrative or the liturgical year and the narrative of our salvation - we as Christians are called to choose our allegiance. Are we following secular time, or church time? Is the Season of Advent going to mean consumption or expectation?

The liturgical year is probably not something we reflect on much and yet it is a key part of our formation as disciples of Jesus Christ. At its simplest level, the liturgical year helps us to retell our story in a coherent fashion. It ensures that we don’t stay stuck in our favourite parts, that we are immersed year after year in the whole story of salvation. And this is really important, although we might want to reflect a bit on why.

One way to answer that is to see it as the Church’s spiral curriculum. A spiral curriculum is one that returns repeatedly to the same topics, re-engaging them in a way that deepens understanding over time. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is one such spiral curriculum. At each level, the children engage with the same stories and concepts, but in a deeper and more complex way. As they grow, their understanding of the story of salvation and of who Jesus is, is enriched.

So it should be for you and me, and this is what the Seasons of the Church year can do for us. Sister Joan Chittister puts it this way in her book The Liturgical Year:

The liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are – followers of Jesus, all the way to the heart of God. The liturgical year is an adventure in human growth, an exercise in spiritual ripening.

It is easy to stay at a surface level through the liturgical seasons, to hear the stories that are so familiar we hardly need to pay attention to them anymore. But then, how do we attune our lives to the life of Jesus the Christ? How do we progress on our journey to the heart of God?

Our immersion in the spiral curriculum that is the church year began anew today as we lit the first candle of Advent and began the journey toward Bethlehem. We know the basic stories, the foundation on which to build, but what new learning will lead to a deeper and more complex understanding? For that, we can turn to today’s readings, beginning with the Gospel.

This reading from Luke is one portion of a longer section in which Jesus gives a vision of the Parousia, the end times. Jesus had predicted the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the disciples asked when that would happen and what the signs would be? I think the answer might have been a bit more than the disciples bargained for, because Jesus launched into dramatic and unnerving predictions of the end of all things, and the persecutions that would precede it. Destruction would reign over the world and the very powers of heaven would be shaken.

Then, Jesus said. They will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

If a person thought that Advent was about singing Christmas carols and waiting for the baby Jesus, this reading might suggest they’d missed a few details. This is not a helpless infant, born in a manger. It is our Redeemer, coming “with power and great glory”.

Advent is about waiting, waiting and longing, for the Parousia, for Christ’s return “with power and great glory”, at the completion of all things. But it is more than that.

In our first reading, Jeremiah speaks the word of the Lord to the exiled people of Israel; The days are surely coming, …… when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David.

Advent is about waiting and longing for God to be born into the world in that baby in the manger, a righteous Branch in the line of David, setting in motion the salvation of God’s people. It is an anticipation of the coming celebration of the incarnation, God taking on flesh in the person of Jesus. But it is still more than that.

Pay attention, Jesus said. Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down …… and that day catch you unexpectedly. ……. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength ……. to stand before the Son of Man.

Advent is about waiting, a particular kind of waiting. We wait for the birth of a helpless infant who is the Branch of Jesse, the Sun of righteousness, come to deliver us. And we wait for the Parousia, for our Redeemer to come with power and great glory. But we do not wait passively.

Be on guard. It is an alert waiting, an attentive waiting so that we do not miss the moment. It is a preparatory waiting, a time of retelling the stories in ways that enrich them and give them greater depth. To what end? So that we will be found ready when the day comes. In Sister Joan’s words, so that we will continue to ripen spiritually until we become followers of Jesus, all the way to the heart of God.

As this liturgical year begins, let us ask ourselves; Will Advent be for me a time of fruitful waiting, a time of preparation? At St Peter’s, we are aided in this through the Gift Tree, and the LITE Christmas hamper program, that point us outward into the needs of God’s world. We are aided by the reflective Light in the Darkness liturgy, and the Lessons and Carols that recapitulate the story of salvation.

I encourage you this year to go deeper into that story, undistracted by the bustle of gift buying and social planning and all the other worries of this life, so that the day of the Lord does not come unexpectedly. Wait for the Lord. His day is near.

I leave you with this poem for the beginning of Advent. I hope that it will help you to wait in the best possible way.

                    Waiting
A poem for the beginning of Advent

One day
An angel announced, Mary accepted
At that moment trusting all would be well
Although not a matter accomplished in a day
There would be doubt
There would be danger
There would be waiting

The mother felt her child grow
Quicken, almost
She became impatient for the day
Still knowing, for all to be well
She must wait

Wait is a verb, an action
We sometimes forget
Thinking it a nothing, a vacuum
Between one act and the next

Today
We still our bodies, calm our minds
Release our longings and our expectations
And we wait
Trusting that in the fullness of time
He will come and all will be well

Amen.