Advent 1 B: Small Things
Dear Partner in Preaching,
You will likely hear any number of well-intentioned and liturgically astute commentators remind you this week that, “Advent is not about the baby Jesus.” Fine.
Yes, the season that takes its name from the Latin adventus – “coming” – looks ahead to the second coming of Christ in power and glory as much, if not more, than the first coming of Jesus in the flesh of the Christ child at Bethlehem.
Yes, we – and particular we North American, relatively affluent Christians – have largely allowed the cultural impetus to use the weeks before Christmas (starting on Black Friday, not the First Sunday of Advent) as a time to get ready for Christmas via the overconsumption of shopping, eating, and decorating rather than making space through restraint and contemplation for the hopeful anticipation of God’s in-breaking into our lives.
Yes, we – same “we” as above – regularly fall prey to sentimentalizing the Christmas celebration, focusing on how cute Jesus must have been and how calm Mary (in our imagination always dressed in blue and looking strangely Nordic rather than Middle-eastern) was, overlooking Jesus’ destiny to die by capital punishment and Mary’s earlier rebel song about how her son would overturn the power structures of the day.
All true. And yet in response to the well-educated and well-intentioned advocates of keeping Advent more purely, I will still say, “fine.” More than that, I’ll advocate charting a different homiletical course this Advent.
Why? First, because you’ll lose. This year, especially, a lot of our folks will yearn for the spiritual “comfort food” of Advent calendars with chocolate behind each door, beloved carols about the baby who “no crying he makes,” and traditional manger scenes, complete with the attentive magi present way, way before January 6th. And, honestly, who can blame them? 2020 has already felt quite apocalyptic enough, thank you very much, and so about the last thing anyone wants heading into Advent is to be scolded about singing Christmas carols too early or admonished to “watch” for Christ’s second-coming instead of focusing on the baby.
But second, and more importantly, I think that, nestled within our increased hunger for the traditional trappings of Christmas – and the nearly overwhelming desire for a sense of normalcy that I believe these cravings represent – rests a much-needed corrective, not so much to our longings for normalcy but to our understanding of Advent itself.
Here’s the thing: this year has brought into sharp relief the fragility of the lives we have made for ourselves and reminded us painfully that we are not, on our own, sufficient to the challenges of life in this world. Isaiah’s cry in the first reading – “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” – is our cry, even if we have a hard time giving it voice. Isaiah’s plea to God is as simple as it is stark: Show up and do something! You know, like God used to do when God rescued Israel from Egypt. And we’d like God – well, preferably God but we’ll take anyone at this point (fill in your favorite political champion or celebrity of choice) – to do the same. And, in my humble opinion, projecting those hopes out to the second-coming doesn’t help all that much.
Which is where Mark’s intentional re-telling of Jesus’ apocalyptic parable points the way. I’ve suggested before that I think this parable works on two levels. The first is indeed to honor and reflect the eschatological roots of Jesus’ message that God will at some point come to right all wrongs, settle all accounts, and restore the creation. The second is to tie that redemptive action not so much to a future and cataclysmic event – as apocalyptic prophecies typically did – but rather to wed it to God’s surprising, even hidden, appearance and in-breaking in and through Jesus’ cross. For this reason, Mark employs the four “time-stamps” of the parable – evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn – to mark the scenes of the passion about to commence – gathering with his disciples at evening, betrayed and arrested at midnight, denied at cockcrow, and sentenced to death at dawn. Similarly, Mark uses the Greek verb to “rend or tear asunder” that is also used to translate Isaiah’s plea (in the Septuagint) at two points: Jesus’ baptism when the Spirit comes down, and the rending of the curtain in the Temple at Jesus’ death.
So when, according to Mark, will the unlooked for day and hour of God’s unveiling and appearance be? Not so much at the end of time, but at the cross, in the hidden and expected unveiling of God’s greatest work. Religious authorities mocked it. Bystanders dismissed it. Even his disciples missed it. Yet in that small and broken figure of Jesus on the cross, God was at work, rending to pieces all that would divide us from God, closing the gap between what we deserve and what God wants to give us, promising to be with us and for us in and through all things.
All of which invites us to hear a little differently the Christmas story for which Advent prepares us. I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with the comfortable and comforting picture of the baby Jesus with his adoring parents or the songs we sing depicting this scene. At the same time, and even as we’re singing, deep down we all know that that comfort won’t last for long. At least if we receive it primarily as comforting rather than as a promise. Because at the heart of the Christmas story is the promise that God not only came in the small and vulnerable form of a baby born to poor and frightened parents, but that God keeps coming in small, vulnerable, unexpected, and unlooked for ways even now. In fact, each time we reach out to another in love, God is once again invading the kingdoms and structures of this world with God’s radical and transformative presence and grace.
That, in turn, not only transforms how we approach and experience Christmas, but also how we look at our lives in the world. What small things can we do in love through which God’s presence and redemption are revealed (the root of the word apocalyptic, interestingly enough!)? What small gestures might we offer that signify our trust that God is with us and for us? What small sacrifices might we make – including, significantly, the sacrifice of not gathering with others when doing so risks spreading the coronavirus – that provide opportunities to see God still at work loving and blessing God’s people and world?
Whatever our usual (and admittedly at times over-the-top) preparations for Christmas, fundamentally Christmas is about small things, a baby, his parents, bottom-of-the-economic ladder shepherds, wandering astrologers looking for someone to save the world, deep-held longings for presence and redemption given voice by Israel’s prophets. And this year, and particularly because our preparations and celebrations will be necessity be a bit more muted, perhaps we’ll be able to hear that promise more clearly: that whenever and wherever we act in love, God is present. So indeed, watch, wait, look, and most especially listen, for in the Christ child who will grow up to embrace all of our longings and experience all aspects of our life, God is whispering, “Emmanuel, I am with you!”
Blessed Advent, Dear Partner. I pray that as you lean into this season and prepare your sermons, you will sense that God is active in and through your labors as well. Thank you. Even more, thank God for you.
Yours in Christ,
David
Thank you David. God, in every act of love! Brilliant!
Amen! Thank you for this perspective on the season.
The word I woke up with this morning is: Do not forget.
While 2020 has been stressful with the V and everything being shaken that can be shaken, we are NOT to forget! Do not forget 2020, do not forget God’s goodness, do not forget what was, BUT do not let what was, the past, prevent you from moving forward with God in this new era.
Things will not return to normal as what was and if that brings “church” folks to repentance, then that is good!
But if the Church folk (those “sitting” in the pews) do not repent (St. Peter says judgement MUST begin in the House of the Lord), then this nation and this world will see many more things come our way which will make us long for the good ole days of 2020.
Blessings and thank you again!
Thank you so much, Rev. Lose. You are a consistent preacher of the Gospel into the needs of the day. Every week, you guide me with love as I begin to assemble a sermon. Thanks be to God.
Your commentary is like one big sigh of relief. Relief for the preacher who knows, as you say, she is going to lose the argument about the Christmas carols and the baby. Thank you for letting us reflect on the “small things” during this time. I especially loved this: “God was at work, rending to pieces all that would divide us from God.” This works with an image I was playing with for Christmas Eve. The Communion Table at my church will hold broken plates (a place setting), and as I talk about 2020, I will move the broken plates into the trash, to be replaced with a fresh place setting. We begin anew, “God rending to pieces all that would divide us from God;” a twist on brokenness. Yes, we begin anew in a fresh Communion.