'Jesus said, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then 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."
Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
"Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 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."'
--Luke 21: 25-36
There is a meme that shows up around this time of year and makes its rounds on the social medias. It’s a picture person holding a piece of cardboard with the words written on it, “The Beginning is near.” There are many variations of this blog, including the one below with a person wear a Guy Fawkes mask. I couldn’t find the origins of the image, but it seems obviously a reframing of those street preachers with signs proclaiming “The End is near,” and in that way, it’s a perfect encapsulation of Advent.
The beginning…of everything…of a new hope…of the kingdom of God, is near. Yes, preacher, we know. We’re good Episcopalians who understand that today not only marks the start of a new church year but also this season of preparation for the birth of Jesus. All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again, and the beginning of the greatest story ever told is right around the corner. We get it.
If that were the case, though, why does Advent not start on a joyful note? Instead, our Gospel fills us with something more like despair. We start the new church year the exact same way we ended the last one, with Jesus talking about a coming time that sounds anything but joyful.
We find Jesus teaching on the last week of his life while sitting on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s a scene that is Luke’s version of one that we heard about from Mark just two weeks ago. Instead of one disciple commenting on the magnificence of the Temple, Luke uses the generic phrasing “Some were speaking about the Temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.” Jesus gives the familiar prophecy about the Temple being destroyed, along with the destruction of the whole of Jerusalem, which some of Luke’s audience would have experienced roughly 20 years earlier. They ask for signs – how will we know these awful things will take place? – and Jesus borrows imagery from the prophet Daniel and paints this picture of doom and gloom – the sun darkened, the moon not giving light, stars falling, and heaven itself being shaken, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria; in fact, Jesus quotes Daniel verbatim when talking about the Son of Man coming in the clouds. It sounds pretty hopeless. Sure ain’t joyful.
Yet if we remember the purpose of this kind of rhetoric – the kind prophets like Jeremiah and Daniel used and that Jesus himself uses– it’s to reveal something to the people, to reveal hope in the midst of hopelessness. This is, once again, apocalyptic, a tearing away of the veil so that the people can see the truth.
Advent is an apocalyptic season. It serves a dual purpose. The first is to remind us that, in spite of the very best intentions of the people of God, the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed to have already come near, hasn’t quite come in its grandest fulfillment, and so the prayer of Advent is that Christ will come again to rule among God’s creation with grace, mercy, and justice. The beginning of such a time, we hope – in the words of our Creed – is near.
The second purpose of Advent is to take us back to the beginning, back to that time of Jesus’ first Advent. And in the midst of our own times of hopelessness, to capture the spirit of hope folks felt back then, a spirit of yearning for that which some might’ve said was too good to be true: a new and unique expression of God’s intention to save this broken world was breaking through.
Capturing that spirit of hope is, I suspect, what Jesus means when he uses a fig tree as a parable for being able to observe the signs of the times. Such observing means paying close attention to all that is happening in our world, regardless of what we are afraid to see. This hope enables us to see our day’s news with the eyes of the heart, and not hide out in the fog of secular numbness or hyper-sensitivity. We often pretend to be remote or untouchable, shrouding ourselves in willful ignorance, but to read the sign of the times is to dare to acknowledge what is hidden in plain sight – what is being revealed to us right now– and to dare to find our part to play, our song to sing, our small task to fulfill in the unfolding drama of God’s Kingdom coming on earth as in heaven. No, we can’t take in all of the heartache and pain we see – our species wasn’t designed for it, our brains literally can’t handle it, which is why the overflow of information that we experience creates in us anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Yet we can find that small task in our small corner; because we’ve all got our part to play in that promised day’s arrival.
Such a day can’t get here fast enough, we might say when we see all that plagues this world, which may lead us to reading such signs less as an invitation to participation and more as a portent to something we must fear. Still, Jesus says, we need not be afraid, but we must remain on guard, yet without our hearts being weighed down. Be ready for that day, but don’t worry about it. So hurry up….but wait?! What kind of Messiah double-talk is this?
It's active waiting. Sounds oxymoronic, but that’s Advent, and it’s how we operate in a kingdom that has both already come and not yet come. For those of you who host holiday parties or are expecting loved ones to visit this year, think about how you prepare for those guests. You wait for them, sure, but is it passive? Lord no! I bet you’re looking out for the stray dust bunny to sweep or making sure the beds are prepared for those overnight visitors. It’s the same way for those of us living in the Second Advent, waiting actively for Jesus to be born anew in our lives, neither trying to predict when it’s gonna happen, nor being passive – but surrendering to God’s timing while actively looking for the one who is already here, finding our place in this kingdom that is both already and not yet.
The days are getting crisper. I’ve felt the wind in the air lately. It chills me with how abrupt it can come on. That’s Advent, coming like the wind to wake us up to the reality that all that we see is not all that there is; that you, and I, and them, are more precious and more important than any of us can ever know; that the love that came down at Christmas is as real now as it was then, and it’s coming again – as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
The winds are blowing. The signs are all around. So, you there, who keep falling asleep in shallow waters, floating on the surface of your life, wake up! Stop staring blankly, numb to the wonder of who you are and whose you are. The God who searches for you in the holy mundane of your life is near. The revealing of your true self, and your role in the unfolding of this kingdom, is near. The beginning of everything is near.
