I have always loved Advent. Growing up in 70's, Advent wasn't something that was as big in the United Church as it is now. I remember getting a new minister in grade 10. On the first Sunday of Advent he just lit first candle and then got on with the rest of the service - no litany, no symbolism. After church I informed him, with all the righteous assurance of a 14 year old, that this was not how it was done, we had to have special readings for light the Advent candles and there were meanings for each candle. I wasn't sure what they were, but I knew they had something to do with hope. There was no internet of course, so God bless the new minister, he must have made some calls and the next Sunday he knew the symbolic meanings for the candles and had proper readings to go with the candle lighting.
At our house on Dec 1 or the first Sunday of Advent, which ever comes first, Hope and I break out the decorations, which mainly consist of nativity scenes as we collect them and are now up to over 40, we put on Christmas music, and get into the Christmas spirit.
It's a lot of fun, but almost every year I then get confronted by readings for the 1st Sunday of Advent that challenge all that joy and excitement. Look at today's readings for example. Jeremiah isn't too bad, we can find some hope in that image of the branch, but Luke? With it's images of end of world, and fig tree and being alert? What is that about? It's a far cry from my candles, nativity scenes and pretty music.
The problem is, we a society tend to use Christmas as a type of escapism from the drudgery of the daily grind, from our fear and despair over the world around us. We focus on the cute little baby rather than the disturbing, challenging man he grew up to be.
Advent readings shatter our fantasy of Christmas as a time of shining candles and pretty music and remind us of reality, that Jesus came to bring a message of God's hope and challenge to a world that was drowning in despair and injustice. Before Romans conquered Israel, it had had a brief moment of independence. Now they were under the most brutal regime of that time.
Jews were essentially non-persons, no rights, no power, very little money. The book of Luke was written about fifty years after the life of Jesus, ten years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the destruction of Jerusalem itself, the destruction of what little security the Jewish people had had under Roman rule. So when the author of Luke has Jesus talking about people feeling fear and foreboding, his readers knew exactly what he meant. They were living with fear and foreboding beyond anything we can imagine. And yet, we can relate, can't we? We are living through a time when it feels like our world is shifting. Reading about the G20 meetings in Argentina this week there was a sense of unreality. Four or five years ago no one was glued to screen or newspaper just because the leaders of the 20 most powerful countries were meeting to sort out policy. It wasn't that big of a deal. But now things have shifted. We don't know what some world leaders will do or say, or how their words and actions will affect us. We don't always know what Canadian politicians will do or say. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the sense of security in Western Nations is diminishing and many people are feeling a sense of unease if not anxiety or outright fear.
The people of first century Israel, of Jesus's time and for decades after, and people of Jeremiah's time, 6th century BCE, would relate to how we are feeling. The people of Jeremiah's time had it even worse than the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE (AD). They were living through the invasion and destruction of Jerusalem and their entire country by the Babylonians. By time the invasion was over, the entire upper class had been exiled to Babylon and those who were left had nothing, no land, no possessions, nothing.
It is to these people, who are in the process of losing everything have every known, that Jeremiah says, “the days are surely coming says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” We can imagine their initial reaction, excuse me, we have lost everything we ever owned or cared about, we have no country, no possessions, no hope, and you're talking about a branch? HUH??!! But as I talked about with the children, a broken branch can be a symbol of hope, a symbol of new beginnings, new possibility. It is actually a more powerful symbol of hope than a whole tree because of its small, fragile beginnings. The people of Israel had lost everything as they were sent into exile, lost everything except their faith and one another. They had that branch of faith of David, a faith based in trust and love and commitment, and during their time in Exile, that faith grew and developed. Some of the most important and beautiful writings of the Old Testament as well as many core Jewish traditions came into being during that time of exile in Babylon.
The sense of hope is not quite as clear in the gospel reading, for today but it's there. If you look closely, you'll see that each paragraph ends with a word or image that offers hope to the listeners. In the first paragraph, Jesus talking about signs of destruction, of a coming time of fear and foreboding, but he ends by saying, when you see these things taking place, stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. In other words, don't be afraid when it looks like the world is going to hell in a hand basket, because I'll be there with you and not only will I be there, but I'll bring redemption, I'll save you, I'll give you the tools you need to get through that time of fear and foreboding.
The second paragraph is similar, with its image of the fig tree, when leaves sprout, summer is near. To me that reassures us that it's normal for our lives, for our world, to go through these times of fear and foreboding. The people of Israel went through it at the time of Jeremiah and again at the time of Jesus. If we look at the history of the western world, we have been through these cycles of fear and anger many times.
And what also endures? My words says Jesus. Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away. Recessions and depressions come and go, there is conflict between individuals, between groups, between nations, and then there are treaties and agreements, there are dangerous leaders and good ones, and through it all, the words of Jesus, the love and presence of God, remain constant.
And then there's that last paragraph, with its advice that we not be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the worries of this life. At first I thought, what do dissipation and drunkenness have to do with the worries of this life, and then I realized again how wise Jesus is. When we are weighed down by worry, it's easy to turn to unhealthy coping strategies, alcohol, food, shopping, binge watching Netlflix – the list goes on.
In a way, we as a society even use Christmas as a source of escapism, which is ironic given that is supposed to be a celebration of Jesus and what he lived and taught, and as we see in this passage he so clearly was not about escapism.
In the last paragraph Jesus is saying, don't give in to escapism, stay alert and keep praying. Look for signs of hope, signs of God's presence in world, for God is still moving in the world, even if we don't see those kinds of stories on the news or in other media.
And remember that sometimes signs of hope, signs of God's presence, look like a broken branch, the opposite of hope. Sometimes it takes work on our part to bring a symbol of hope into fruition. In some ways that sums up so much of what Jesus modeled and taught, doesn't it. Don't just wait around for the world to change, for life to get better, look for signs of hope, nurture them and help them to thrive and bring light to others.
This Advent, may we all see beyond the signs of fear and foreboding in the world around us and in our lives. May we be alert to symbols of hope, signs of God's presence, doing our part to bring them into fruition, so that others may benefit from them as well.