Faith | Cats | Hope | Grace

I love the wisdom of the church year. The continual cycle we find ourselves in year after year century after century. To be perfectly fair, the church doesn’t have a monopoly on marking the passage of time. In a few short weeks we will be welcoming in a new calendar year. In the fall, we mark the start of a number of different academic years. We are in many, many ways marking the passing of time and the start of something new. So while the church’s marking of the passing of time isn’t unique, I appreciate how the church starts the new year.

We start the church year with a significant period of waiting and watching and preparation. The start of the calendar year frequently feels like it starts with a bang—with fireworks sometimes it’s quite literally. It’s a time of New Year’s resolutions—new year new us. We hard launch into a bunch of intentions. Start exercising. Stop doomscrolling. Start that novel that’s been in our head for years. The start of the academic year launches us immediately into a different set of new things–new things to learn, new friends to make, new questions to answer. Advent is a beautiful way to start something new. Not with a flurry of activity, but with preparation and with waiting. Advent starts with a great longing in our hearts. A longing for our salvation. A longing for the Kingdom of God. A longing for God with us.

At a previous parish, and perhaps here as well, during Advent the Gospel hymn is 2-3 verses of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. For four weeks we prayed through song of our longing for God to be with us, to save us, to end our divisions, to bring us peace. Through Advent we can see the brokenness in our world that needs repair, brokenness that needs healing. Through Advent, we keep watch for the signs of that coming healing in the world. Through Advent we begin to envision a world of peace, a world of harmony. Before we can even think about how we can be co-creators with God to work to bring about that world, that vision of what could be creates in us that deep longing.

Advent is the very opposite of a hard launch. It’s a slow and steady build. What it may lack in a flurry of activity it makes up for with a focused intention. More a freight train gathering speed. A train pulled along by the great longing in our hearts.

With this morning’s Gospel reading, as frequently happens, we are dropped in the middle of a story in the middle of a series of stories. Through this entire chapter of Matthew, Jesus has been telling various gatherings of listeners parables about various signs they should be aware of. Signs of the ending of one age and the beginning of another. Signs of the coming of the Son of Man. We are charged with being attuned to these signs, attuned to the changes in our times, attuned to the coming and continual incarnation. But first we need to prime ourselves to be able to see these signs.

Our Advent hymns frequently call on us to awake. To keep watch. Sometimes the exclamation point in our readings or our hymns almost provoke an anxiety. It’s a watchfulness or a wakefulness that creates a tightness in the chest. How many times have you been so on alert for something that you actually missed it. Or alternatively, something else came at you absolutely sideways. Watchful is less an overcaffeinated hypervigilance and is instead a deep listening. The need to be quiet and to be still in order to hear a soft tap at the wall, a stillness to feel the shift in the wind, eyes adjusted to the darkness in order to be able to see the first light of dawn. That kind of watchfulness instead loosens the tightness in our chest. That looseness, that openness leaves us open to hear and it leaves us open for God to become incarnate in our lives in ever flowering ways.

So we are wakeful and we are keeping watch, but for what? We are watchful for the signs and reminders of the incarnation. We are watchful for the signs of God with us. We as a larger church community remember a particular moment in our collective story of Jesus being born of Mary, becoming man, and living among us. But what if we saw incarnation not as a one and done moment, but a continual outreach of God into our world. The incarnation as continued, infinite moments of God breaking into our world and dwelling among us. Among us. What a delight to know that we have a God who doesn’t, who can’t keep themselves separate from us. A God who finds us all so loveable that they just can’t resist being among us. A God who took on a human body with all its weirdness, and quirkiness, its pops and creaks, its malfunctions and frailties and through the [reality] of inhabiting the human form made it holy. God is forever and continually breaking into our world and into our lives. We have only to keep watch for those moments.

Jesus is frequently described as the light that has come into our world. Where do we see that light in our world? Where do we long to see that light? As we keep watch this season of Advent, where do we see those cracks in our world? Not cracks that point to our brokenness, but those cracks like a gap in the curtains that let in a hint of light to illumine the room we are in. That crack that lets in even a small point of light that hints at the blinding glory that awaits us if throw open the curtains to our rooms and our hearts to the indwelling of God among us.

It’s the time of year where it’s a little easier to notice the light because of its more frequent absence. There are times in our lives where light seem absent, and not just for a short moment, but for a sustained period. And this lack of light, this darkness is all the harder when those around us seem to be enveloped in a warm, comforting glow that never quite reaches us. But a deep watchfulness, a deep, open attentiveness bring to our attention the light that is still present even if muted. Even if soft. Even if we can’t quite discern the source. And sometimes all the more when we can’t even perceive it. The light is there even and especially when we can’t discern it. In Advent we expectantly wait for the light to come into our world. But the secret is, the light is already and is still here. It’s ok if we are at a time in our lives where we can’t see it. It’s still there.

Our faith lives—our worship, our spiritual practices, our work in the world—is all practice and muscle building for how we are to live in the world. Advent is actually a delightfully practical time and offers us a lovely roadmap to this season as well as practice for our entire lives. First we are called to attention. Called to notice, called to see. Called to listen deeply. We are called to see the incarnation, to see God breaking into our world. And we are called to prepare. Prepare our hearts, our lives, and our communities for a coming Christ. And through this preparation, we are readying ourselves to respond to the gift of our God breaking into the world. The world is being made new.

So dear friends, let’s start this new season with a sacred slowness. With intentionality. Let us look for the inbreaking of light in our world. Let us rest easy in the sure knowledge of the coming of that light. Let our hearts sing O Come O Come Emmanuel.