Sunday, 28 November, is the First Sunday of Advent. The readings are (to read them, go HERE):
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm 25
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36
What are you waiting for?
This question kept coming to mind as I thought about this Sunday, but I had the feeling that I have often preached on waiting, especially the past couple years. It’s certainly been true that throughout the Covid pandemic we have been waiting. Waiting for this or that restriction to pass, waiting for vaccines, waiting for booster shots, waiting to hear what would happen next.
And sure enough, just before Covid began, I did preach a sermon here in which I started the very same way, by asking you, “What are you waiting for?”
But the question still applies, for I think we are all waiting for something. But are we waiting for the right thing? And when life demands that we focus on something else, why don’t we do it? What are we waiting for?
Waiting is a theme of Advent, the church season that begins today. In Advent we are waiting for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. But more than that, we are waiting for the Second Coming of Christ, when he returns to judge the world.
That is what we hear about on the first Sunday of Advent, today. We hear readings of the coming of the day of the Lord, the coming of the kingdom of God. Jeremiah speaks of this event in rather positive terms, that a descendant of King David will arise and bring justice and righteousness to the land. This is Jesus, who was a descendant of King David, and who did bring the presence of God and God’s righteousness into the midst of the people. The people had been waiting for a Messiah to come and set things right.
But people did not listen entirely — what were they waiting for? — and in our Gospel reading, we hear Jesus tell his disciples of more dire things to come: ‘distress among nations,’ ‘people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world’, the powers of the heavens being shaken. This is called apocalyptic speech — there’s a big word for you — speech about the coming of the end of time, the end of things as we know them.
We seem to be living through such a time now. Things are being shaken up so much that we’re not quite sure what is happening. Is it the end times? We do not know. But as I said two weeks ago, when we had a similar reading from Mark’s Gospel, we do not know when the end will be. Jesus elsewhere tells his disciples not to worry about it, not to be focused on exactly when this coming of the day of the Lord will be, this coming of the end of time.
But that does not mean we forget about it. As Jesus says to his disciples here, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.”
In other words, Jesus might be saying to his disciples (that includes us, by the way), get your act together. Don’t be focused on things that do not matter. Do not spend your time and energy on them. As a passage in the prophet Isaiah says, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?” We know we do this, but we do not change. What are we waiting for?
What are we waiting for indeed? Now I know that it is all too easy to get focused on all sorts of things that rear their ugly heads every single day of our lives. There they are, clamouring for attention, and we have to make an effort to turn away from them.
But the point in the Christian faith is that we are not alone. We do not have to do this by ourselves. It’s like a two-way street. We take some steps toward God, we make some effort to focus on what is worthwhile, and then God takes steps towards us. We might pray, as in the words of the psalm today,
“Make me to know your ways, O Lord,
and teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me…”
And then it happens that in bits and pieces perhaps, and sometimes in fell swoops, God works in our lives to help us get on the right path, to keep our hearts and minds focused on what matters.
It is what is called grace. Our collect for Advent says this,
“Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light…”
The works of darkness. Those are heavy words. The works of darkness are anything that pull us away from God, that work in our hearts and minds and souls to distort our perception and destroy our faith and rob us of hope. The works of darkness could be physical or spiritual. But we pray to God on this First Sunday of Advent, and throughout the season, that God might give us the grace to cast them aside.
But we need something to replace them. And so we also pray to put on the armour of light. This means the light of God protecting us, guiding us, giving us hope. The Apostle Paul prays in his letter to the Thessalonians that we heard today: that God may “so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
There’s that idea of the Second Coming again — of a time to come when Jesus will come to judge the world, and Paul prays that we might be strong to stand before Christ at that time. Jesus said it to his disciples also, “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
What are we waiting for? In the Christian faith, we are waiting for the coming of Christ again, to usher in an age of righteousness and God’s presence and light permeating all that is. But the good news is that we do not have to wait. In fact, we are not supposed to wait for some future time. Christ continues to come, in all ages, wherever hearts and minds and lives are open to receive him, and to walk in his path, and to give thanks for his grace and his mercy. Christ continues to come, each day, when people cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Christ continues to come, when people are alert and on guard and pray for strength.
What are we waiting for?
— The Rev. Canon Liz Beasley