Mark 13:24-37
Wide Awake
James Sledge November 27, 2011 – Advent 1
When I was a young boy, I’m not sure if there was anything more exciting to me than the arrival of Christmas. Way back then, Sears still mailed out a big Christmas catalogue. And when it arrived at our house, my brother Ron and I grabbed it and began going through it, looking for items that we might want for Christmas. I think that for us, the arrival of that catalogue signaled the real beginning of the Christmas season, a more important marker than decorations in the stores, Christmas music and so on.
We went through that Sears catalogue over and over, dreaming of all the wonderful gifts we might get. Then we eventually settled on what seemed reasonable actually to ask for. Then we had to wait. But finally, after what seemed like forever, the house was decorated and presents were wrapped and put under the tree, and Christmas Eve would arrive.
My household was one of those “Nothing gets opened until Christmas morning” homes. And so the evening of Christmas Eve was filled with more anticipation than any other time of year. Before bedtime my Father would read The Night Before Christmas, along with the nativity story from Luke’s gospel. And then we would go to bed.
We would go to bed, but we didn’t go to sleep. Ron was just a year younger than me, and the two of us shared a bedroom. And how could we possibly go to sleep knowing what was about to happen. Somehow the living room was miraculously going to fill with many of those toys we had asked for. And since we shared a room, each of us reinforced and amplified the other’s excitement and anticipation. We thought every creak or sound might be reindeer on the roof or Santa coming down the chimney. And our parents would have to stick their heads in the door repeatedly, urging us to be quiet and go to sleep if we wanted Santa to show up. But it was so hard to settle down, so hard to fall asleep.
I still enjoy Christmas Eve, though it doesn’t hold quite the same level of excitement or anticipation that it did all those years ago. And so I usually go to sleep without much trouble. But other times when I am really excited about something, really anxious or worried, or really anticipating some big event, I can still find it very difficult to get to sleep.
“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” So Jesus says to us this morning. Quite the opposite of my parents’ words to Ron and me, “Go to sleep!” Jesus urges his followers to stay awake. If my parents had told us, “Keep awake,” we probably never would have gone to sleep. Jesus clearly was dealing with a very different problem.
Modern day Christians don’t have much appreciation for this, but in Jesus’ day, most Jews assumed that the arrival of God’s Messiah would usher in a new age, something so wonderful it would be like Christmas morning every day. The prophets had spoken of it, a day when people would beat their swords into plowshares… the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
But that had not happened quite as people expected. Jesus had come, died, and been raised, but the world still looked the same. The very first Christians assumed that this was a very short delay, a brief window where they could share the good news with the world. But the window would close when Jesus returned. And if you read the letters of Paul, it is clear he thought that would happen within his lifetime.
In our gospel today, Jesus warns against such assumptions. The final closing of this age and the coming of a new one are known only to the Father. And so we should not listen to those who claim to have figured it out. When God’s day begins to arrive in full, no one will be able to miss it. It will be as clear as the arrival of Spring. Until then, we must simply stay alert and keep awake.
But while staying awake when you are giddy with excitement is easy, it is less so when you don’t know when the moment you are awaiting will arrive. When one day looks a lot like the next, it can become more and more difficult.
I suppose that is why some Christians are forever ignoring what Jesus says and trying to figure out the timing of his return. Harold Camping’s rather spectacular failure earlier this year was only the latest in a long history of such failed predictions. Camping’s prediction – at least the one back in May of this year – generated the sort of anticipation and excitement among his followers that my brother and I felt at Christmas. People quit jobs, sold or gave away property and homes in expectation of the rapture Camping promised was coming. But just as Jesus said, such predictions are inevitably wrong, for no one knows the day or hour.
Today, another season of Advent opens, and the anticipation of another Christmas begins. As with Harold Camping’s predictions, we know exactly the date and time for Christmas. We have a lot of stuff to do to get ready, and we may struggle to get it all done, but Christmas will not catch us off guard. We will be ready when it arrives. Perhaps that is why Advent had become almost entirely about getting ready for Christmas. After all, how do we get ready for something we do not fully understand, that comes at an unknown day and hour?
I actually think that this question grapples with some fundamental issue about the nature of faith. Think about that for a moment. What is faith? What does it mean when we say that we have faith?
The fact that Protestant Christianity grew up alongside the Enlightenment and the Scientific Age probably contributed to the notion of faith as largely about information. And our focus on faith rather than works seemed create a new sort of work, believing the right things, knowing the correct information.
But as worked up as people can get about right beliefs; as hard as some may work to convince others of them, a growing number of people seem to have become disenchanted with such notions of faith. Rather than wanting to know the right beliefs, they want to know, “What difference does faith make in how I live? What difference does it make in how I experience life?” And while an Advent that only gets ready for another Christmas may believe the right things what once happened long ago, I’m not sure it knows what to say to those who wonder what difference any of this is supposed to make.
Most all of us are familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But where did that dream come from? For King it emerged from a deep life of faith and prayer. His faith was not simply information he believed correct. Rather it was a deep connection to God and the promises of God that looked forward to something new and wonderful. You can have all the right information, and not dream the dream. The dream is a transforming hope that is known and felt despite evidences to the contrary. It drives people to live and act in ways that anticipate the dream’s fulfillment, to be wide awake with anticipation even though the day and the hour are unknown.
In his last speech, just one day before he was assassinated, King said, “I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.”
That’s Advent faith. That’s wide-awake faith that lives expectantly for a day with no announced arrival. You could memorize the Bible and know every theological doctrine Presbyterians hold dear, and be no nearer to such a faith. Such faith comes only when Jesus abides in us, when the Holy Spirit transforms us, when we become so connected to God that God’s hopes and dreams for a new day begin to become ours.
It’s Advent once more. We light Advent candles and get ready for Christmas like we do every year. Some of us have done it so many times we could do it in our sleep. But Jesus says, “Keep awake.”
Jesus, come and dwell with us. Let us see the promised land of your new day, that we may get ready for it, work for it, and anticipate its coming like excited children on Christmas Eve. Come, Lord Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment