On radical uncertainty and hope.
Advent Sunday Year C, 3rd December, 2000
John Davis, Vicar, St Peter's Eastern Hill
Now when you see these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Luke: 21:28.
The Church year begins with words of violent upheaval and distortion of everything that might once have thought to be stable and permanent: like the natural environment, the weather. It speaks of great human distress and fear. It speaks of a breakdown far more fundamental than the pressures of oil prices, rising unemployment or exchange rate fluctuations. The sort of collapse described would involve the elimination of everything that could be normally relied upon or that could offer any support or physical re-assurance - from the stability of the land itself to any of the pre-existing structures of human organisation. Now that is a fundamental occasion for stress, if you were unfortunate enough to be around at the time.
Yet that is the scriptural context of the glorious words and resonant musical phrases of Wesley's great Advent hymn 'Lo He comes', which is such a thoroughly good sing.
And it is that description which precedes the immensely confident words with which I began. This is not a time to run and hide: this is a time to stand up and raise your heads with a renewed sense of confidence and hope. This hope is squarely to be placed in the promised One who is coming and who indeed has already come among us as Christ Child in Bethlehem. In him we see God's glory. There is to be found the security and hope when absolutely everything else is found wanting or without substance.
Advent traditionally engages the big themes, the basic issues of meaning, direction and purpose. The four weeks of preparation and reflection before the celebration of the festival of Christmas has a hard time finding any space in our time or our minds. The round of enjoyable parties and gatherings is already well and truly with us. The balmy early summer days help us to prepare too for the lazier pace of our Australian January, perhaps with anticipation of holidays and relaxation. So everything really conspires against much of an engagement with matters of life and death or heaven and hell, or with the consideration of the underlying fragility of much that we would assume to be solid. A bit of a mood dampener, really.
Then again, maybe it is just at this sort of time that we are given glimpses of truths: that some tinsel and glitter is simply tinsel and glitter - no more. That some forms and expressions of human interaction is indeed extremely superficial and empty, or cheap and exploitative. Before the accusation of killjoy is justly framed I would of course hasten to add that much of this can also be enjoyable and relaxing and good fun, using the creative gifts and energies with which we are potentially so well endowed. Some froth and bubble is fine. It just doesn't have to be invested with anything deep and meaningful. What is underneath and underlying still needs to be considered as well. It remains a question of priorities.
Most of us would remember the parable about the rich man who spent his considerable energies accumulating a barn full of material things and did not, it seems, concern himself with much else. But those material riches were of no use to him when one night he suddenly and unexpectedly died. Huge wealth will not buy hope or happiness - or heaven. (People without huge wealth often nod sagely at that, forgetting their own equivalent priority problems).
We need sufficient personal self-awareness to assess, to balance and to discern. Or sufficient humility to be able to be told. Or sufficient spiritual openness to be able to hear and see, spiritually speaking when the issues are again placed before us, in the liturgy, in the Scriptures, in prayer, or by a good friend or in the process of reflection on what life has thrown in our direction. Any or all of these is possible. This process is what the readings and themes of the season of Advent are quite clearly intended to assist us with.
Depending on which translation is followed, our gospel today speaks of our redemption or of our liberation being at hand. The metaphorical throwing off of shackles is strong language. What words can begin to describe the area of human experience and perception here? Freedom, life, new life; a new basis and purpose for living, a new reason for living, a completely new way of looking at the same set of facts and circumstances, a new sense and awareness of what is important and what is not; a deeper security? Traditional religious language would want also to include salvation and eternal life and the fundamental security that is to be found there. All our consideration over many of these last weeks of issues of discipleship, of following, in living and in loving, the example and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth have been taking us in this same direction.
All three of our readings today have at their heart a people who have understood these perspectives and attitudes: people who have started to see with these new eyes, who are living in this renewed relationship with God. Jeremiah looked to a renewed practising of honesty and integrity; Paul saw it as being clearly expressed in the kind of life that followers of Jesus were meant to live - something that came from the heart, a holiness of heart. This would be welcomed and honoured by the Lord when he returned. Luke urges us to watch, to stay awake, to pray for the strength 'to survive all that is going to happen'; to 'stand with confidence before the Son of Man'. (Lk 21:36) All of this even when the world as we know it, in whatever sense we care to understand that, may be seen to be crumbling around us.
In the context of a radical uncertainty, yet there is assurance and hope. That is a fascinating proposition. In there is indeed liberation. It is as if a lot of balls are thrown into the air and they come down differently. Some things are found just not as important as they formerly seemed to be. Some goals and objectives no longer seem to be life defining, or that which gives meaning to a life in the way that they had previously. So questions of career, position, wealth, power, the opinion and attitude of others, what is happening in the wider community or around the world, relationships of genuine significance - all these things can find themselves up for re-assessment. The key to this is the reminder that this is a radical uncertainty in the underlying context of a deep and growing sense of assurance and hope. That is what is so interesting and creative about this possibility, this experience. A deeper assurance allows for much more freedom in a lot of other areas that then become matters of second level concern, not primary. Consider the lilies of the field, the Lord reminded those that were consumed by second level anxieties. Placed in a context of a community living out these values, questions of adequate clothing, labour, food, shelter would no longer be an individual problem. A new perspective would bring changes there too.
Advent certainly brings a change of gear and pace. Advent is about revolution , upheaval and change. Advent is about promise and expectation and judgement. It is not about comfort and complacency. The themes are perhaps too much to have a hope of consideration in an Australian December. But they are also too important to be abandoned in a headlong rush to the manger in Bethlehem and the birth of a little child. For this is the meaning and the hope in an ever changing world that that child was to bring and to live.
This then is not the occasion for fear or for denial. Yes the times are hard, yes the challenges are confronting and huge, yes the world and most of its people seem to be going crazy or out of control, yes there is a God, yes there is a life that continues and grows. Yes, God will come again in great glory. Yes, that will be ours to see and experience. Yes, there is yet hope.
Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Lk 21:28
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