Holding on to Hope
Advent is a beautiful time of the year, a season of richness and depth that draws us in and invites us to reflection, reorientation, indeed to a new beginning. For Advent marks the start of a new liturgical year as the long season after Pentecost, six months of green vestments and of sequential reading through Mark’s Gospel that has ended. In its place we have blue vestments, the Advent Wreath, the pageantry and petition of a litany, hymnody and song that encapsulates the longing and the expectation of this season. And the beginning of a year with Luke’s gospel. Advent is a beautiful, short and precious time, but it does not exist for itself. Historically it emerged as a time of preparation for the great feast of Christmas. Just as Lent prepares us for the celebration of resurrection and baptism at Easter, so too Advent serves to prepare us for the great feast of the Incarnation. Many aspects of the season are easy to understand in light of that connection. Readings from the prophets have a special place of importance, as they tell of a coming savior and his righteous reign.
From the gospels we hear the stories preceding our Lord’s birth, mostly from Luke’s gospel: the Angel Gabriel’s visit to the blessed Virgin Mary; Elizabeth and Mary’s tender encounter after Mary received the Angel’s news; the visit of that same angel, Gabriel, to Zacharia telling him that Elizabeth would bear a son, John the Baptist. These stories are those that logically call to mind for us preparation for Christmas and the birth of Christ. And they are indeed the focus of the latter portion of Advent. Yet there is another theme that is just as important to the season as preparation for the birth of the Christ Child. The word ‘advent’ derives from the Latin meaning ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’, and this season that bears that name focuses on both the first coming of Christ as a humble child born in Bethlehem and the second coming of Christ in power and great glory. The latter is the clear focus of this first Sunday of Advent, and it is to that theme that we must now turn our attention.
Of course, considering the second coming of Christ is not something that comes easily or frequently to most of us in our modern context. When the end of days receives attention, it seems to be either from sensationalized movies that depict terrifying and disastrous events accompanying it, or perhaps from misguided, even manipulative, religious leaders across history who have convinced others of their exact knowledge of the Lord’s return. A great and tragic irony given his clear statement in the gospels that no one knows the day or the hour, not the angels in heaven nor even the Son himself. For many of us, I think, there is also a sense in which talking about a second coming or the end times seems quaint or even quirky. Something that occupied the thoughts of less sophisticated people of earlier times or, perhaps less pejoratively but still not without issue, that such a topic is not important or relevant. After all, nearly 2000 years have passed since Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and here we are still, awaiting. The immediacy of Christ’s return that clearly animated many early Christians, most famously Saint Paul himself, that seems so far removed from us and of little urgency and consequence. I would like to suggest today that this season of Advent demands us to reconsider the second coming of Christ as something not only of great importance and relevance, but as an essential expression of the good news that is intrinsic to the gospel.
We might begin such a reconsideration of the topic by simply noting its presence in our regular liturgical celebration. In the Creed that we affirm together as community each week we say this, ‘Jesus Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end’. Or consider the Memorial Acclamation that we say together in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer, the great prayer over the bread and the wine. Often it takes this form, ‘Christ has died. Christ is rise., Christ will come again’. Other times, as is the case today, we say together ‘We remember his death. We proclaim his resurrection. We await His coming in glory’. Notice that in both cases, Christ’s return is included along with his death and resurrection, the very core elements of our faith. Whether we notice it or not, Christ’s return in glory is proclaimed regularly in our worship. And it’s given such a prominence there of course, because scripture affirms its importance.
It is to the example we have before us today from Luke’s gospel, that we now turn. This passage from Luke, Chapter 21, immediately proceeds the start of the Passion Narrative in the following chapter, those events that we recall each year during Holy Week. It is then the final teaching that Jesus offers prior to the Last Supper and his betrayal. There’s a certain fittingness to a final teaching on the final things of this world. In an admittedly challenging description, Jesus speaks of cosmological signs in the sun, moon, and stars that will be accompanied by terrifying conditions, roaring of the seas, distress, fear, foreboding, confusion. It’s all undeniably frightening and grim, the sort of stuff that makes for good cinematic content. Yet in contrast to those dramatic popular depictions, the signs themselves are not the most important thing. For they are signs, and as such, they point to something else, namely Christ’s return. Amidst these seemingly dreadful conditions, the Son of Man will come in a cloud with great power and glory; a cause not for fear but rejoicing. Notice the posture Jesus tells us to adopt. Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. It is reason not for fear and trembling, but confidence and hope because our redemption, our deliverance draws. Indeed these signs are to be an indication that the Kingdom of God is near. Now, that might be all good and well, but the question still remains: what are we to make of something that is, we presume, in the future beyond our horizon?
What impact does it have for us now? Jesus addresses the question in the final portion of the gospel passage, offering instructions for how we are to live in the meantime, in the time in which we await his return and glory. The command is simple, ‘Keep awake, be on guard, be alert. Pay attention’, Jesus says, ‘because the day will come at an unexpected time’. Now this idea of constant vigilance might conjure up for you an image of a sort of intense, some might even say paranoid, attitude that is motivated above all by fear. That is certainly not what Jesus asks of us. Yet something is required of us. As Christians we live in this world but do not belong entirely to it. We are a pilgrim people always on the journey toward that place which is our true home. And while we travel along that way, Jesus instructs us to stay awake to that fundamental truth, to live in such a way that our hearts are not weighed down with the things of this world. We’re cautioned not to allow drunkenness and the worries of this life to distract us.
As a beautiful prayer from our Prayer Book puts it, we ask for the grace ‘not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly’. As Christians we are called to a different way of being, one that St. Paul alludes to in his first letter to the Thessalonians. We are called to holiness of life. Now that might immediately sound like an unattainable goal. Holiness seems to belong only to God and perhaps the saints, those who have lived exemplary lives of faith. But holiness at its root implies being set apart, something or someone that is different, separated from the ways of the world. One of the main ways in which the season of Advent invites us to embody holiness, to be people set apart. is in the invitation to hope, to be people rooted in and filled with hope.
Here in the northern hemisphere, Advent always overlaps with the increasing darkness that comes with the approach of winter, which for most of us, brings as well the chill of cold temperatures. Darkness literally surrounds us. And this natural phenomenon is accompanied by so much else that seems to call us to despair, ongoing war throughout the world, fragmentation in this country, uncertainty about the global order, the crushing reality of human suffering in all its daily varieties. There is so much that seems to demand that we take on a spirit of despondency, gloom, deep pessimism.
It is undoubtedly the easier response to all that surrounds us. Yet, as people of faith, we’re called to something different, to hope. Even when it seems completely unjustified, foolish, even ridiculous. We hope because we trust that the things of this world, the ways of this world are not permanent. That there is coming a kingdom where justice and righteousness reign, where the sufferings and sorrows of this world yield to the merciful and loving Savior who comes to set us free. It is a kingdom unlike anything of this world. The mighty are cast down, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled with good things, evil and wickedness overthrown, justice and mercy prevail. That is indeed something worthy of joyful expectation, something worthy of our hope. And as we await the glorious advent of our savior, we are called to live as if we are already on the threshold of this kingdom. Faith, hope, and love abide. These three, says St. Paul, they are the markers of what it means to live the Christian life. And so, amidst the multitude of cares and concerns of this life, we stand firm in faith and hope with heads raised confident that our redemption, our deliverance indeed draws near and with it the coming kingdom of our savior. We can join with the psalmist and offer this quintessentially Advent prayer: To you, Oh Lord, I lift up my soul. My God, I put my trust in you.
In this beautiful season of Advent, this precious time that is given to us, I pray that you will hold on to hope. Embody it and show it forth in this world and ask God to fill you with it more and more each day. That is our mark of holiness, our witness to a world filled with to despair, yet longing for redemption, for deliverance, for the coming of our great Lord and God, Jesus Christ. Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God forever and ever. Amen.