Every year I begin the season of Advent feeling the urge to apologize about the scriptures. This text from Mark. It’s not very cheery, is it?
But there it is, with its words of dread; one calamity after another. The sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will fall from the sky. It’s like a horror movie. And we can treat it that way if we want to. My son Joe spent some time in Mississippi when he was a young man and attended a church where the pastor preached in the fire and brimstone tradition. Every Sunday he stood in the pulpit breathing threats and terror against the disciples in the pews. Every week he would end with, “come back next week and I’ll tell you more about how it’s all going to end.” And Joe kept going back. He didn’t necessarily believe it, but he was always the kind of kid who likes horror movies. So it was entertaining, and he was riveted.
Fire and brimstone is not my style. I am not a fan of threats – except on the rare occasion when I have to threaten a misbehaving two-year-old. But for the most part, I am in agreement with the preacher who advised me to read such texts slowly and thoroughly and carefully, just not literally. That is frequently good advice for the scriptures. So let us approach the text from Mark carefully – but not literally.
And it isn’t really that hard after all. What Jesus is telling us in Mark’s text is that the ways of the world that we are accustomed to will cease to be. The old world will fall away as the new world takes its place.
And what will the new world be like? It’s what we have been talking about for the last few weeks, really. In the parables of Matthew 25, we have learned to think of ourselves as people who wait – we wait in expectation for Jesus. We have heard that this waiting is shaped by creative and courageous living, using the resources we have been given. We have learned that this life of waiting and expectancy is, most fundamentally, paying attention to those around us – it is a willingness, a readiness to see Jesus in each person we might encounter.
It is about being alert. Watchful. Awake.
As the one who watches the fig tree. When the leaves begin to bud, we know that the fruit is on its way. I don’t know fig trees, but I think of my orchid. I watch it every day. When I see a new stem appear, I watch. Eventually there may be buds on the stem, and so I watch. And when the buds appear, I wait for them to open, for the flowers to unfold. I never know how long it will be. It can take much longer than one would expect; the fig tree is the same way, I understand.
We watch. We wait.
It is like someone who travels abroad, Jesus says. They leave their home and put the workers in charge of things while they are gone. Each one has responsibilities as they await the return of the master of the house. It will not do to laze around the house carelessly until they see the master coming up the drive. We know that the right thing is to do the right thing, regardless of whether the master will return on time to see it.
We watch. We wait. We commit ourselves to the spiritual practice of paying attention to what is. And this is something the world needs now as much as it ever has.
There is a story from Jesus that is written in the gospel of Luke, about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. Lazarus was in a terrible state. He was sick, he was hungry, he was slowly and painfully dying. Every day, Lazarus lay at the gate of the rich man’s house. But the rich man never really saw him.
The purpose of the story of Lazarus and the rich man is to remind us of the importance of this spiritual practice of paying attention. To watch for everything we are given, to pay attention to how we might use our gifts well, to live as those who are expecting a better world to come even in a world that is crying out for justice, for peace. To live as ones who are expecting this better world to come and expecting to be a part of it.
Every year during advent we preach this message of watching and waiting, and frame it as a hopefulness. Yet, each year I know that this message of hope might not resonate with you. If your life is feeling just fine as it is. Because, quite honestly, hope feels pretty meaningless when life is just fine.
Hope is the kind of thing that just doesn’t mean much until you really need it. It is in the worst of times that hope has the greatest possible strength. It is when optimism is not even possible that hope comes alive. Because hope comes from God. And this is the good news.
When all seems like darkness. When we are feeling the cruelty of death, severing us from our loved ones. When we are watching the world at war – a state of war that seems endless. When we know that we do not have the answers, God steps into our darkness and brings light. When the sun and the moon and the stars fall away, there is the light of God that no darkness can overcome.
And this is the good news. The world is suffering, collectively. And we, each of us, are carrying our own private despair. But we are not responsible for fixing it. We cannot manufacture hope, and that is alright. Because hope is the thing that comes from God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.
Pay attention, I say to you. Watch. Wait, and you will hear the cries. They come from Ukraine, from Israel, from Gaza, from all over the world and from right outside our gates. Hear them. and know that the one we are waiting for is coming. No one knows how long it will be. Do what is right for as long as it takes. In expectancy we watch and wait for the one who is coming, knowing that he has prepared the way for us to follow. We travel that way with hope.
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