For those who have been following the social media campaign #AdventWord, the word that was used for this past Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent was 'awaken.' #Awaken. It's a fitting word to describe the beginning of Advent, the time when we prepare for Jesus to be
born anew in our lives, for Christ to be awakened once more. It's like a whisper on the ever-cooling winds, inviting us. Awaken. From what?
To what?
With
Advent comes a new season and a new start to the church year. Gone is our Ordinary Time with its day-in,
day-out routines. They’re comfortable,
but comfort can lead to complacency, and by this time of year many of us find
ourselves tired and weary, and we’re not sure why. Perhaps because we have been lulled into a
dream-like state by the intoxications of our so-called Ordinary Time, and our
anything but ordinary world. We see some pretty extra-ordinary things happening
around us, yet we are so numb to them that we write them off as normal, ordinary. We see people in power abusing that power, people dying in senseless ways,
and humanity continue to destroy this planet of ours, yet when we see it all we just shrug and say, "That's ordinary." If we settle in too much into the ordinary we
can get caught in that dream-like state. Still, by the grace of God, it happens again every year: here
comes Advent, reaching out to us, calling us to awaken from that ordinary state,
to breathe in something new that is not so intoxicating, something that will
allow fresh life to be born in us as we wait for him to be born.
It’s like
a scene in The Matrix, one of my favorite films, and one of the most theologically rich films ever made. The protagonist, Neo, finds
himself in a world that is ordinary, routine-based and lulling him into an
almost intoxicated state. Deep down,
though, he knows there is something more.
He meets Morpheus, a man who offers him a choice—Neo can take a blue
pill and remain in this ordinary world, or he can take a red pill and be
awakened to an existence that is nothing like where he is now, but one that is,
in fact, his true calling. Neo takes the
red pill. Go watch the movie and find
out what the reality looks like to which he is awakened.
Morpheus offers Neo the choice of the blue pill (stay in the ordinary world) or the red pill (wake up) in The Matrix.
Advent is
like Morpheus, reaching out to us and inviting us to awaken to our own true
callings. We get so caught up in the
day-to-day grind—get up, go to work, come home, eat at some point, fret over
the state of our world, go to sleep, get up and do it all over again—that we
seldom stop to pay attention to that invitation that God is giving us to something that is not so ordinary. Advent is that invitation, and it is not just about remembering Jesus’ awakening
from the darkness of eternity and being born into our world, rather it is a present reality that invites us all to be awakened to who it is God is calling us to be.
We use the
word call a lot in church circles, especially with regard to people who have gone to seminary. Those folks have to routinely answer questions about their call:
when did you feel it, what do you think it means, how will it change in
five years??? It can be overwhelming. Honestly, though, call is something that God
puts on the heart of every person, not just those with fancy degrees from seminaries, but when you’ve got this kind of world vying
for your time and attention, it’s hard to hear or see God, or to even find time
in the day to be with God. We end up
feeling like Isaiah felt, like God is distant, hiding from us (Isaiah 64: 1-9). All we want is for God to come and give us
the red pill and wake us up.
The truth,
however, is that God is always there, even when the noise and stress of
Ordinary Time overwhelms us. Even when the world around us is madness and we cannot see, hear, or feel God, the ever-present God that we know and love is always still there. Isaiah knew
that, deep down. So did Paul. “God is faithful!” he told the
Corinthians (I Corinthians 1: 9). That means that God does not give up on us,
even when all around us is madness, even when we can’t hear or see God or
understand the call that is being given to us.
God comes to us now in the stillness of this season of Advent, inviting us to be awakened. To be awakened is to know our true calling, that one thing that only we can do, the one way that only we, and nobody else, can grow the Kingdom of God. When we are awakened to our own calling,
then, we can heed Jesus words to keep awake, to hold fast to that calling in
spite of the madness (Mark 13: 37). Keeping awake means knowing our calling and living into it each and everyday. Advent reminds us that we are waiting not only for Jesus to be born anew in us, but we are waiting for his coming again. If we keep awake, living into the call Jesus has placed on our hearts, then when he comes he will find a world that is ready for him.
Awaken, brothers
and sisters. Awaken your hearts and
minds to the love of God that is ever-present in your lives. Awaken your spirits to your own calling, to a
reality that is more real than anything you’ve ever known. God is inviting each of you. It can sometimes be like a parent trying to awaken a sleeping child, and we might might need to yawn and stretch and move
about, but the invitation for us sleepers to awaken is still there. It will
not pass away, for it is of God. What
does your call, your awakening from the ordinary, look like? Welcome to Advent.