Signs and Times

We aren’t good at waiting. It isn’t in our cultural DNA. I’ve lived in other parts of the world for a time and discovered that other nations, other cultures, do the waiting thing a whole lot better than we do. We want everything right now. Fast food wasn’t fast enough, so we put in drive-through windows. (By the way, shouldn’t that be “drive-by windows”? I’ve always wondered about that.) Prepackaged meal preparation wasn’t fast enough, so now we put it in a microwave. We don’t like standing in line. I’ve jumped from one line to the next, hoping that the new one would go faster, only to discover that the original started moving. And I felt like I lost some competition! Are we there yet?

That is why Advent is such a difficult season—because it is all about waiting! No wonder each Advent season is a wrestling bout between poor, overmatched Advent and the cultural juggernaut called Christmas. We might as well give in and admit that all we are doing is trying to hold back the tide that will bring Christmas crashing to the shores of our lives with certain inevitability. Why fight it?

I love Christmas; let me go on record here. I love all aspects of Christmas, even what some think is its commercialization. I love how this event transformed a nation and parts of the world and caused folks to change gears, rethink, and set themselves aside for a time. Yeah, they don’t always get the “true meaning of Christmas.” But I’ve read a couple of theological tomes trying to explain the Incarnation, and I can’t say I fully understand it either. There is something of a mystery here. So, not knowing is not a bad thing. And yes, priorities get smooshed around (that’s a bit of theological jargon, in case you were wondering), and disappointment seems to abound at Christmas time because expectations are misplaced. But still, I love Christmas and the seemingly magical potential for change in the air at this time of year.

But having said that, Advent is not just about Christmas. There is more to Advent than a countdown to Christmas. Advent is a reminder that we are heading somewhere. We have a destination as a people. Advent lets us stop and ask, “Are we there yet?” The implication is that we know where “there” is. We have a vision of where we are heading, so we start every Advent season with a check of the map. Here’s where we are heading:

That’s the “there.” Are we “there” yet? Well, the answer is obvious. That brings up another reason we want to set Advent aside and get to the goodies at Christmas. Christmas, we can count on. It will be here, ready or not. It may not be all we had hoped it would be; our dinner table might not look like the spread in Martha Stewart Living; the decorations might not be photographed for Midwest Living’s Christmas issue; our family might not come together like the ones in innumerable Christmas specials on TV - but come Hell or high water (and some Christmases have been elements of both, in my experience), Christmas will come. But this other thing... this vision of peace and community... this kingdom of God thing that Jesus seemed so keen on ... are we there yet? Not by a long shot. We have “miles to go before we sleep.”

And what is worse, the journey seems fraught with danger and disaster on every side. Even Jesus seems to claim that in our Gospel reading for this first Sunday of Advent. I’ve tried to use Jesus’ words as an answer on long vacation trips: “Of that day and hour no one knows.” It is less than satisfying, let me tell you. No one knows? When are we going to get there? What do we have to do to get there? Do we know if we are on the correct route to get there? It is hard to know. And we want to know. But Jesus says we can’t know—at least about the destination. In fact, he seems to imply that a preoccupation with wanting to know is akin to blasphemy. He says that if you had known, you would have been doing the wrong things.

But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into (Mt 24:43). We have trouble with this image in the first place. Comparing Jesus’ return to that of a thief in the night gives us pause, to say the least. We have to turn our brains upside-down enough to hear what he is saying. First, the return of the Son is a good thing, not an easy thing, but a good thing. And doing what you can to stop it is a bad thing - maybe something that seems sensible but really isn’t. So, he says, if you had all the information and knew the game plan, you would likely do the wrong thing—the thing that keeps it from coming.

“Wait a minute,” we would argue, we want the kingdom to come. Don’t we pray every week,” Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven”? Do you think we don’t mean it? Well, maybe. The point of the passage is that we sometimes protect, value, and place our trust in the wrong things. The householder is just that: someone who wants to hold onto the house. In the kingdom, that house won’t matter. The things this society prizes won’t matter in the kingdom. So, in effect, when the Son comes - when the true Christmas comes - he will take away all the things of this world. That doesn’t sound too good to those of us who are attached to our things. We just might stay up all night to keep our grip on the stuff we think we need if we think someone is going to come and take it all away.

But Jesus says that is not our mission. We are not called to stay up nights, protecting our stuff or our status or our political configurations or our sense of superiority or —well, you fill in the gap. But if that is the case, what is our mission? If we are not about the business of preserving our way of life, then what are we supposed to be doing?

Two men are working in a field...two women are grinding corn... What does that mean? It means we are to be about the business of living. We are called to provide for our families. We are called to create a sense of home in this world. But at the same time, we are called to keep watch, which means we are asked to hold much of this world a little more loosely. We, the ones who were taken (meaning those gathered into the community of faith - not taken away in a rapture kind of experience), are to remember and to be the sign that we have a destination and that we aren’t there yet.

Aren’t where? On the highest mountain. Isaiah says, “In the days to come.” Some translations say, “in the latter days” or something like that. The original Hebrew was closer to “someday,” not just at the end. Someday, this will happen. Someday is within our reach. Someday is within the realm of possibility. “In the last days” sounds so final, so out there, that it is beyond us. Someday might mean when we get around to it, when we’ve moved closer to it.

What will happen on that “someday”? The mountain of the Lord will be established as the highest mountain. Some of the action items in the Isaiah passage are things God is going to do - God will teach, God will lead, God will judge. Some of the items are things we are called to do: We will invite; we will go to the mountain, and we will beat the swords into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks. Did you notice that last bit? We will beat the swords; that isn’t something God will do at the end of time. It is something we are called to do as a part of walking in the ways of the Lord. Or as Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (not the peace wishers or the peace hopers). Blessed are the peacemakers.

Have we beaten any swords lately? Or have we left them there to use when necessary? Have we left them there as a contingency against those who might want to hurt us? Have we left them there as a sign that we can rely on our own strength, our own pride, our own stuff to get us where we are going? Are we there yet?

The action item of the establishment of the mountain is left vague. Who is doing that? “In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains...” Who is doing that? Who is making the Lord’s house the highest priority in our lives? Who is making sure that God’s will, God’s direction, God’s vision is the center, the peak of our existence every day and during this Christmas season? Who is doing that?

Maybe it is a joint task: God and us together, speaking and listening, teaching and learning, coming and hoping. What are you waiting for? Are we there yet?