What are We Waiting For ?
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT
November 28, 2004
Isaiah 2:1-5; Rom.13:11-14
Rev. Robert Lee
Neil, our son, the dog and I went down to Boston for Thanksgiving. We caravanned in 2 cars because our son planned to spend the week end in the big city. Neil and I, of course, had to get back. Since our son works nights, he came home on Thanksgiving morning, rolled into the passenger seat and attempted to go to sleep as I drove his car. When I drive long distances, I like to listen to the Broadway production of “Les Miserables”“. There is an inevitable groan when I put it on. Possibly that is because everyone in my family, including the dog, as heard the tape around 5,000 times. There is also the fact that I also sing along with “Les Miserables”. When we pulled into a rest stop, my son decided that he might be more comfortable trying to sleep in the other car with his father, so he jumped out. The dog didn’t have a choice. She was stuck with me and Jean Val Jean.
“Les Miserables”, if you haven’t read it, heard it or driven in a car with me; has several interweaving stories. One of those concerns a band of idealist college students who plan an uprising on behalf of the poor. They are sure that once the barricade is built and the revolution proclaimed, the poor will flock to the uprising and win the fight for equality and justice. The students are prepared to offer their lives in the cause and, indeed, they are slaughtered by soldiers while the poor watch. Some of the poor cynically strip the dead bodies of good clothing, money and even gold teeth, saying that the owners have no more use for clothes or teeth and finders-keepers. One of the more poignant songs of the show is a reflection by the women among the poor that the death of those young men changes nothing and life goes on today as it did yesterday and will tomorrow. There is no hope for the future; there is only pragmatic coping with each day’s painful reality.
As I listened to the music, I was also thinking about the meaning of Advent. Each year we begin our Christmas season with four weeks of readings that invite us to hope for the time when a new day will dawn. It is no coincidence that Advent is also the beginning of the darkest time of the year. Imagine what it must have been like hundreds of years ago as people relied on candle power to light away that darkness. With each week’s candle adding its flame to the Advent wreath circle, there was just a bit more light in gloomy and cold churches. The symbolism that we enjoy in our well lit sanctuary was entrenched reality to our ancestors in the cave-like darkness of those old stone mediaeval churches..
We moderns need to work harder at understanding the meaning of light in Advent so I reflected on the underlying hopelessness of that student barricade and the women’s song in contrast to the spark of hope that each candle of Advent proclaimed and still proclaims. Hope is justified and light will conquer darkness. Each Advent Sunday we read from prophets who tell us not to give up that hope; but rather to stubbornly cling to it. This year as we begin Advent that message is so very welcome. Isaiah demands our attention as he says: “They will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift sword against nation, no longer will they learn how to make war.” What better words could we hear in Advent, 2004? Instruments of death will be reshaped into tools that support life. In the work of bringing forth the wheat and fruit of the earth, nations will unlearn the ways of making war.
These words are not present but future oriented. Isaiah says, “They will...” not “They are...” This is where hope and frustration become intertwined. Don’t we all yearn for a future that will be safe for our children and their children? Don’t we all wish that the human race would finally grow up and get along? Don’t we all hope that Hutu and Tutsi; Palestinian and Israeli; Sunni and Shia; Christian and Muslim; American and Iraqi; Russian and Chechen, etc., etc., etc. will all take a step back from the killing fields and begin to find the way to peace? While I frequently pray that God will come and make things right in our world, there is the part of me that knows better. It is up to us humans to develop the will to free the world from war and starvation and disease. This begins by learning how not to hate. We will never achieve the peaceful future for which we all yearn, until we embrace one another as family. Until that time, we wait in the darkness, learning how to love and hoping that we are not too late.
I was doing some cleaning and ran across an old photograph taken around 1908. A group of young people, including my grandmother and grandfather smiled for the camera with all the enthusiasm and optimism of youth. They were poised on the edge of life’s adventures, not knowing that within ten years, they would be caught up in the terrible conflict of World War I. They did not know that their life savings would be wiped out in the stock market crash or that their sons would be fighting and dying in another war and that their grandchildren would be in yet another and their great grandchildren in still another. I wanted to tell them what I know about their future but also to tell them not to be afraid because despite all that awaited them, there is family still continuing. They have three great-great grandchildren and eventually there will be more. I wanted to tell them that despite the nightmares; there would be wonderful new discoveries. Polio and smallpox would be conquered. Antibiotics would save countless lives; cataracts and glaucoma would lose their power over aging eyes and; most important, women would be freed from corsets. I wished that I could tell them that life is both dark and light. They would have both in their lives and in human life. On their 1908 faces all things seemed possible; and, some in fact, were. Their wait became their children’s wait; a legacy that is passed from generation to generation - in hope and in fear.
So we wait; for what? Advent requires our wait to be reflective as we ponder the darkness and the light . I am not all that sure what I feel about waiting. I am challenged by even very small amounts of waiting. I am a charter member of a society that demands immediate gratification. I don’t have to write a letter; I can e-mail my friend. I don’t have to wait for a phone booth; I have a cell phone. I don’t need to spend hours preparing a meal; I can pop the frozen entre into the microwave. I don’t even have to wait for the clerk at the grocery store. I can check myself out; unless, of course I mess it up as I usually do and need a live person to bail me out. When I have to wait, it’s as though I am being denied air to breathe. I’m annoyed when I have to wait in traffic. I feel disenfranchised when I have to sit at the doctor’s office for more than 10 minutes. I am affronted when the computer takes more than 30 seconds to respond to my button pushing. Do you sometimes feel that way also? Yet we all have times when waiting is unavoidable. For me and perhaps for you, there are many times when the wait is accompanied by worrying. From the moment my children took their first independent steps out of the door, I worried about them as I waited for them to return. When they got their licences, I never slept until they were safely home. Even today, when my daughter and her husband drive up from Maryland, I spend a good portion of their travel time worrying about accidents and breathe a sigh of relief when their car finally pulls into the driveway.
The waiting of Advent is subtle. It is not about worrying what the future hold. Advent is an absolute assurance that there is a future that does not contain barricades or dead children. Advent is the wait of hope that resembles nature. As Fall gives way to Winter, the fields have given up their bounty; the leaves have fallen and nature has begun its time of waiting. This is an active wait as the decaying leaves replenish the soil and the snow cover protects the resting earth. Advent waiting is also that of the act of creation that ensures the continuity of life. A woman spends nine months waiting while within her body an intricate work of creation occurs. When the wait is over and a child is born, she is forever changed. Perhaps the world is also forever changed. That assurance of the future is tested at the bedside of dying loved ones. Those are often times when one seeks to prolong the waiting. When a loved one is dying, each hour that remains is precious. When the wait is over and the beloved dies, there is gratitude in the midst of grieving for having had those precious waiting hours. And for those who believe in the future that lies beyond life, there is a sense that all of life is simply a preparation for what is to come; a lifelong wait for the indescribable bliss that lies beyond human experience. And, for better or for worse, there is an end to every wait. Although the end may not always be what was expected or desired. There are times when the wait itself is a transforming experience, resulting in greater maturity; increased patience and growth in wisdom.
Paul says in Romans: “The moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up...the night is nearly over; daylight is on the way so we throw off everything that belongs to the darkness and equip ourselves for the light.” No matter how long the wait has been or is yet to be, the day is at hand. “Let us live decently, “ Paul says. As we wait, we do so with active hope and with a commitment to love one another. As we wait, by the way we live our lives, we continue to light candles of joy, peace, faith and love, inviting others to join us. In the light of those candles we learn the art of reshaping swords into plowshares and by the time the earth is ready, we will plant the earth with seeds of peace and the wait will be over. This is what we are waiting for. Amen.