Advent 1 - waiting and working in hope

Today in our Church calendar we move into the season of advent – The first Sunday in advent is traditionally the beginning of a new year in the life of the Church, and we begin to look forward again to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. 

Like any new year, advent is a time of reflection – it’s a time of looking back perhaps, but advent is primarily about looking forward, perhaps to the nightmare of Christmas shopping, if you haven’t already done it, perhaps to the joys of spending time with family, the Christmas parties… perhaps even to new year, Christmas being over, and the chance to start again – to make and try and keep those resolutions once again ! 

But the looking forward in advent could be much longer term than any of those things, because in advent we look forward to the promised return of Jesus, and on this first Sunday in advent one of the themes of the day is ‘Hope’. 

In the current economic state many people are hoping that they’ll keep their jobs, many are hoping for more price cuts in shops or on houses or on cars… others will hope for loved ones to be safe…. All of us have hopes of some sort, and even though there are uncertainties all around us, the return of Jesus is not uncertain – he says he will come back, though we don’t know when… 

And so we have the hope of the return of Jesus, and the hopes of our everyday lives and dreams. Once again today in our gospel reading we have that image of Jesus returning, and the need for us to be ready (Mark 13:24-37) as he comes with great power and glory to gather his people. 

Most people I think hate waiting, whatever form it takes – one person described the queues before Christmas like this, "Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the festivities of Christmas, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the shops. We traditionally do this by driving around until we see a shopper going into the car park, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space."

And when we’re waiting there are a number of things we can do – we can do nothing, sit and stare into space, we can read a book, play a computer game or something, we can take time to think or even do some work, but when we’re waiting for Jesus we can actually do no better than to take the advice of a sticker you can sometimes see on cars, ‘Look Busy, Jesus is coming !’ 

Advent is the time when we focus on the return of Jesus in the Church calendar – it’s the time when we reflect what we should be doing to be more alert, to make ourselves more ready for his return, but the fact that he’s coming and we don’t know when or where or how, means that we must live our lives being alert.

One day a young girl asked her Sunday school teacher, "What's a Lert?""A what?" the teacher asked. "A Lert?" she said again. "Why do you want to know?" asked the bewildered teacher. "Because the Vicar said that we should 'be alert,' so I want to know what a Lert is, so I can be one.

2000 years ago after Jesus ascended from the earth people took this need to be alert really seriously - people expected Jesus to be back soon, ready to collect his followers... People were ready to shout the words of Isaiah that we heard this morning 'O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence' (64:1)…

"O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!" With these blunt and fierce words, the prophet Isaiah literally begs God to make Advent come to pass, now. 

God's people had waited for years in exile without sensing God's presence. Isaiah asked God to shake up the world, make the mountains quake, and frighten all their enemies (64:1-3). Instead, Isaiah, it seemed, got silence. 

Perhaps we’ve all felt like Isaiah at times - wondering where in heaven or on earth God is? Perhaps we’ve prayed and felt nothing, saw nothing, sensed nothing, for a long, long, time? If so, then perhaps that offers our greatest picture of advent – waiting, waiting for an unknown time, but waiting in hope, waiting in expectation…. 

Often we want a loud and noisy Advent with jingle bells ringing. We want God to enter boldly into our lives in a bright red suit for all to see and hear. Instead though, God often comes through the back door of life, in the most unlikely places, the places of most need, the places where we feel vulnerable or lonely or afraid or sad… 

The message of advent is not Jesus bursting powerfully in and answering our every wish or desire. He could have done that but instead, it is that we have got what we most need, God-with-us, Emmanuel, our Saviour. The seemingly hidden but always present God is made known to us each and every time we open our lives up to Him. 

And waiting with that message in our minds helps us to realise that our waiting can never be done quietly, but must be done by being what God wants us to be – loving, compassionate, kind, merciful, truthful, peaceful, fighting for what is right for ourselves and for others, seeking out justice for all… and showing these qualities in everything that we do, every moment of every day… 

Hope is a theme for the first Sunday in advent, but the themes of light and darkness continue through this season – the light of Christ overcoming any darkness in the world, and he does it partly through his people being the ‘light bearers’ – literally you and I carrying out the light of Christ as we seek to do his work and share his peace. 

I really like the story of hope where a rabbi asks his students, ‘How can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends and the day begins ?’ One student suggested that it was, ‘when, from a distance, you can distinguish between a dog and a sheep.’ 

‘No’ the rabbi answered. 

‘Is it when you can distinguish between a fig tree and a grapevine ?’ asked a second student. ‘No’ the rabbi said, and he went on to explain, ‘The night ends and the day begins when you have enough light to look human beings in the face and recognise them as your brothers and sisters... Until then the darkness is still with us.’

So, in advent, we wait with hope. We wait knowing God’s promises. We wait secure in his love... Waiting's a funny thing - when I was in school I used to spend most lessons looking at my watch waiting for the end of the lesson and they seemed to go on and on… I'm told, though I can hardly believe it, that some people do that in sermons…..! But, as we all know, being busy makes time go much faster - and so advent is a reminder to stay alert, to watch for Jesus, but while we wait, we are to do his work - to shine his light, to share his love... 

I wrote down some words from a conference I attended a few years ago, (Llandudno - Time is now conference - Mark Clavier). The speaker said that as Christians we are to ‘Reach higher, shine more brightly, and be a beacon of God’s love to show the world who we are and why we are…’  

They’re bold words to a church so often seemingly talked about as being in decline – but God isn’t in decline, and neither is his church. We may be called to new and different adventures in the church. We may be challenged to accept change that we find difficult but as Christians we have to maintain the spirit of dreaming dreams, of thinking big, knowing that God can deliver on those dreams… 

But in Christians and non-Christians throughout the world there is often unfulfilled potential – there is the failure to engage in a relationship with God that is truly life transforming.. 

As we enter Advent we start a new Christian year, we’re faced again with a challenge – a challenge to live out the gospel message in our own lives – by grasping that relationship with God – by seeking to be more like Jesus as we celebrate and share his incredible love… We prepare to celebrate the birth of a child – a child who would grow to change history… 

And so there is a challenge – but first there is an invitation to really live as part of the kingdom of God, knowing his love, knowing his peace…. Let’s not miss out on our potential – on the potential to build our relationship with God – to recognise his love, to know his peace….

Every moment of every day is different because Jesus lived and died and rose again – every moment of our lives is different because Jesus lived and died and rose again… This advent and into the future, whatever our futures may be and wherever we will be led – let’s journey with Jesus every step of the way. Let us be thankful for his love, sure of his presence and confident to proclaim him as our Saviour…

May we dream of a world full of Christians praising God - may we be willing to pray for that, to work for that and to trust in God's power to deliver that…. Amen