“Advent Lament, Advent Joy
December 3, 2017
Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37
Imagine, if you can, living in a nation divided; a nation whose better days seem behind it.
Imagine living in a nation in which there is no end to the disagreements the people have with one another.
Imagine living in a nation in which, as growing income disparity separates people even further, the rich trample the poor that they might get even more.
Imagine living in a nation in which God seems absent; a nation in which those who speak of God seem to do so for their own gain, in which religious leaders are mostly charlatans.
What would you do in such a nation?
If you were the prophet Isaiah and the nation was ancient Israel, you might cry out: “O that you, God would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence…so that the nations might tremble at your presence!”
And in this way you might address not only God, but the people of the nation—a people returned from exile in Babylon yet showing little sense that they have learned anything from that experience—anything of themselves or anything of God.
This December, the ancient anguish in scripture seems to find an echo in our own distressed spirits. Each day brings new evidence of the deep divisions in our nation. Each day seems to bring new revelations of sexual misconduct by men in power. Each day brings a new mass shooting although most no longer make the news. Each day brings reports of the upheaval of nations, of war and rumors of war. The opioid crisis grows. Racism continues unabated.
And now we have a tax bill—and while some might disagree—I would side with those who label it looting of the public purse by corporations and the wealthy that will enrich the country’s elite at the expense of everybody else, including future generations who will end up bearing the cost.
We, too, lament and cry, “O that God would tear open the heavens and come down!”
The season of Advent begins with an honest assessment of our situation.
The season of Advent begins with lamentation.
We light one puny candle—it doesn’t seem like much light in the face of such deep shadows and great gloom. In addition to the prophet, we read the words of the Psalmist that cry out to an absent God: “How long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?...Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” If only the Creator would simply join with the creation that longs for peace and fulfillment and life and light.
The psalmist invites us to be honest before God about our world, our lives, our hopes and our fears.
“Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel. . . stir up your might, and come to save us!”
Some are reluctant to speak like this before God, fearing that such a lament indicates a lack of hope. But Advent is a time to name, to mourn, to rage against the seeming absences of God.
We are helped in faithful lament by those ancient Israelites who did not hesitate to speak honestly with God. Their lament arose from a deep communal memory of times of favor, times of prosperity. They would not forget their story, the story of God's sheltering care. In part of Psalm 80 that we didn't read, the people sang:
You brought a vine out of Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it;
it took deep root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches;
it sent out its branches to the sea,
and its shoots to the River.
Israel was that vine, and God was the gardener that gave it growth.
If God seems distant at times, we need not sit waiting in silence.
To cry “God, we have had enough violence and hunger and greed and death in this world!” is part of our Advent preparation. We are active. We suffer and hope. As we announce and await the coming of the light of Christ, we cry out of the black holes of our own existence and listen—carefully, expectantly—for God’s faithful reply.
The temptation in times such as these is to give in to the present—to accept that what is is all that can be, all that will be. The temptation is to succumb to despair, to give up and give in to the rampant forces of greed and hatred and totalitarianism that are on the rise.
By grace we instead once more hear the call to exhibit a faith that God’s promises are good, to live out our hope, and to show a love that grows from the conviction that, as Isaiah put it: “God works for those who wait for God.”
Such faith, hope and love are the source of many of the beloved Advent and Christmas traditions of this congregation: giving to special mission programs such as the Heifer Project and Church World Service, contributing to the Shelter House, and our other giving at this time of year—at the end of a year that has been marked by great disaster and great courage, at the end of a year that calls us to be open and welcoming and generous. All this is done to enable the world to be more like God’s plan for it. We give to provide healing, clothing, food, and shelter.
When we give, when we act out of love, we learn to let go of at least some of what we have so that we can let God work though us in the world. And if we are fortunate, when we give, we begin to recognize the ways in which our lifestyles contribute to hunger, to poverty, to violence—to the affliction of the world. And we repent—that is, we turn in the opposite direction.
We give to announce the mercy, love, and compassion of God even when it is not readily evident—especially when it is not readily evident. In this way and in many other ways, we announce that we will not give up, we will not give in.
Through the active preparation of these days we are involved fully in this present world with the conviction that God is at work where we are. We do not flinch from the unpleasant realities of the present, but neither do we take them as the final word.
As Advent begins, we lament. But let us also be aware that this is not the first December, the first Advent filled with distressing news. So even in these distressing times we are called to the joy of these days as well.
Joy, as you know, has very little to do with being happy—maybe nothing at all. It has little to do with our good fortune. It’s an energy that comes most often when things are grim or painful. Joy comes uninvited and at the most unexpected times.
Rejoicing. Exulting. Taking delight in something. Call it what you want. It’s one way that people find the energy to move toward compassion and sharing and beating swords into plowshares. Joy is one of the ways that we move into new life. We can learn by the careful observation of our own delight—and you will find that this delight, this joy has the capacity to energize.
There is a joy that is deeper than the good times and bad times that life hands out, stronger than our best attempts and worst failings—a joy that lifts us when we cannot lift ourselves, a peace that grasps us and returns us renewed.
Friends, this is the good news that comes to us as we prepare for the coming of Christ: Even in the worst of times, God is giving birth to a new possibility—the reconciliation of God and humankind. This creative birth, like all births, can be long and difficult. Christmas is not for children alone. It also comes to the often weary and jaded adults that we have become. We hear the good news that God is still at work in the world, so that the world that is more and more becomes the world as it might be.
I read recently that the blue of Advent—the deep blue of the candles, of our paraments—replaced the traditional purple in order to make a theological point. The blue of Advent is the color of the sky in the morning just before sunrise. You’ve seen that color—a deep, rich blue. It is the color we see before the light returns.
It is dark now. We lament. We pray with ancient pray with Israel: “Restore us, O God, let your face shine that we may be saved.”
And look. Even now, the light is slowly dawning. The light that the coming God brings is the possibility that we might become the whole people we are meant to be, that the world might become the place God created it to be.
May our eyes be open so that we can see it with joy.