Advent: A Time of Waiting.
Advent 2B
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; Mark 1:1-8
12/07/2008
Nita Byrd
As I approached Advent and prepared this sermon, I was struck by my unfamiliarity with the spiritual practices of this season. Then I was plunged into a sea of silence when I lost my voice earlier this week. I floated silently, watching the activity of those around me, much to my chagrin. As I slowed my pace, I contemplated this season of reflection and anticipation; I felt a sense of remorse, as if I had ignored a child quietly waiting for attention in a class where only the noisy children received the necessary instruction. Numerous demanding entities can be rather distracting during Advent, and the quiet child of my soul who waits patiently remains neglected.
I do not have this problem when I observe Lent. I experience more quietness during Lent, and can make the necessary transitions to move inward and work with Lent. However, during Advent I find myself in the classroom of commercialism with an overabundance of hyperactive students forcing me to develop rigid schedules and decorative environments to keep everything in order.
Fortunately, God provides a place for me to open my ears to a new voice. This is a voice which bids me to begin a counter-cultural journey along a different pathway during the Advent season. The voice exemplified by St. John the Baptist in the Gospel of Mark rises above the noise. John is not only present in the wilderness desert, away from the conventions of society; he is an extension of the wilderness. The feeling of the camel hair on his back, and the uniqueness of his diet, all accompany a penetrating voice that could be heard in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside. This voice calls us to turn from the prevailing practices of our culture and begin a journey in preparation for the coming of Christ.
At Saint Mark's we have described this Advent journey of preparation as an Adventure to Christmas. Our preparation today includes a reading from the Gospel of Mark, which is written with a sense of utmost urgency. In a few sentences, the prophet Isaiah is quoted; John the Baptist appears; the crowds are told to repent; and Jesus' coming is foretold. I am reminded of the beginning of JRR Tolkien's classic, The Fellowship of the Ring, where the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins begins the journey along a road to a new life. He disappears from a party, relinquishes the magical ring, and affirming his decision says, “'I am as happy now as I have ever been, and that is saying a great deal. But the time has come. I am being swept off my feet at last.' [Bilbo] paused, silent for a moment. Then without another word he turned away from the lights and voices in the fields and tents and trotted down the long sloping path.” He chose a new path, but he had to pursue it without delay. Likewise, there is a sense of immediacy in the Gospel of Mark. The listener must turn from an old existence to travel the pathway of God, what we would call repentance.
Our Adventure to Christmas requires us to turn from the lights and voices of advertisers or social events toward the quiet pathway leading us to the Spirit of God residing in our souls. Bilbo in Tolkien's novel let go of the magical ring which corrupted his true nature – this was symbolic of repentance. Repentance often elicits images of remorse for wrong actions or behaviors. I propose that repentance is the joyful realization of our true nature created by God. It is this nature that is valued by God so much that Christ became incarnate in our bodily form. We need to enter the time and place where we become aware of how Christ is revealed in each of our lives. This is Advent.
The Advent Adventure takes place in an “in-between” time - a time suspended between the expectation of Christ's birth and Christ's promised return. What exists in this in-between time? Only one possibility: It is not the past. It is not the future. We must meet God in the present.
We give birth to the living Christ in each finite moment that God gives us of the present when we value the image of God in ourselves and in each other.
This Christ is continually revealed to us and through us.
This is the Christ who wants to know us intimately enough to become one of us.
Our in-between time is when we say, “Yes Jesus; I wait for you to be born anew in my life.”
The Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton reminds us of the joy to be found when we recognize the Spirit of God within our being.
“God seeks [God's self] in us, and the aridity and sorrow of our heart is the sorrow of God who is not known to us, who cannot yet find [God's self] in us because we do not dare to believe or trust the incredible truth that [God] could live in us, and live there out of choice, out of preference. But indeed we exist solely for this; to be the place [God] has chosen for [God's] presence…”
The gospel writer has John proclaim that one is coming who “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” It is our duty to remove all barriers of a false sense of self perpetrated by the noise of our surrounding culture. Advent is a time for the journey along the paths and highways of God where we open ourselves and realize Christ's presence.
Then our inner movement during Advent prepares us for an outward movement of compassion in all the seasons to come. When we step onto the quiet road of our personal Adventure, we begin to see a world uniting heavenly and earthly realms described by the Psalmist, where God “will speak peace to God's people, to God's saints, to those who turn to God in their hearts.” “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.” My friends let the journey continue.
AMEN
©2008
Nita Byrd