Advent is...

Isaiah 2:1-5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many people shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples’ they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Psalm 122

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.” Now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity with itself; to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, the assembly of Israel, to praise the name of the LORD. For there are the thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers. For the sake of my kindred and companions, I pray for your prosperity. Because of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek to do you good.”

Romans 13:11-14

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Matthew 24:36-44

Jesus said to the disciples, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 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. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

********

Swords into ploughshares. Wouldn’t that be amazing. I was scrolling around the Internet this week and came across not only a story of Russia deciding to upgrade its military tanks, but more stories of violence at home, more Nazi language being used in this country, more death and fear and threats of deportation and a religion-based registry. And that’s before I even got to the ongoing stories of what’s happening at Standing Rock, which is escalating even still, even during this week where we celebrated Thanksgiving and dressed our children like pilgrims and Indians and called it ‘cute,’ forgetting the history of small pox and the trail of tears and the genocide. Swords into ploughshares, would we even know what to do if we weren’t fighting something, fighting somebody? Would we even know what to do if we woke up and saw the bigger picture and our part in it? What would our world look like if we didn’t make any more veterans because we didn’t make any more war? Do we know how to grieve our pain, or only how to fight? Have we forgotten how to plant, how to cultivate, how to live in peace?

Advent is a combination of end times and new beginnings. We would not be waiting and hoping for something new if we were happy and at peace with how things are. And I don’t just mean wishing we hadn’t eaten so much at the holiday and hoping to fit into those jeans again. I don’t just mean wishing my portfolio looked better. I mean an end to the murders of transgender people - there have been almost three hundred this year alone, and most are women of color who are misrepresented in their obituaries and the media reports. I mean an end to the need to work two or three full-time jobs to make basic ends meet. I mean being able to trust the water out of your tap is drinkable, being able to send your child off to school in the morning and trust they will make it home alive, being able to wear what makes you comfortable without being sexually harassed and assaulted. 

Advent is a time when we say we have had enough of this. We turn to God with fists raised in frustration and say ‘fix it!’ Because for far too long we have known that two may be working in a field and one will be taken, one will be left, and community will be broken by violence and deeper ‘us versus them’ divides. How many times we have decided not to talk politics with friends because we like to keep the peace, but those politics affect our daily living and the daily living of those friends, and that peace is more and more tenuous if we are too afraid of each other to engage in basic care for the world. I know we don’t tend to like conflict, but we’ve got to know how to handle it, because it’s all around us, and it’s inside us, too. How do we live without cutting ourselves into what pieces are allowed where, without hiding what’s important to us because we might not feel entirely accepted, without waking up one day feeling like we’ve missed something? That unexpected hour is a rude awakening at best. Some might call it a midlife crisis. Or a defining moment. Or a breaking point.

Advent is our community reaching a breaking point. It is waking up to what we ignore, wrestling honestly and intently with what we want the world to be and what it really is, with who we want to be and who we really are. Advent is calling on God to do something and getting our hands dirty doing something. If you’re pregnant and the baby is due any day now, you don’t wait until you’ve been discharged from the hospital to buy the crib and the car seat and the diapers and the onesies and the blankets and the bottles. We are building a world, with God or without God, and what we build isn’t just for us, it is for our neighbors and our children and for people we will never meet. What kind of world will God give us courage to build? Where nation shall not raise up against nation, where we won’t learn war any more?

Advent is calling on God’s promise of faithfulness to bring us to completion. It is overturning every rock and fallen log looking for that presence of divinity that throbs in our veins. Because Advent hope is not just going on with business as usual and expecting to wake up one morning in heaven. Advent hope is planting a tree when it seems the world is ending. Advent is turning swords into plough shares, caring for land that we have historically covered in blood, uprooting injustice and seeing what crops God will plant among us. Advent is liberation, and it is for the whole of the world. This is the season we are in, the time at hand, the passion of a God who is so invested in our healing that She took on flesh and blood for our sake, in order to live and die just like the rest of us. So let us use wisely the time that we have, trusting in that compassion to hold us together in times it feels the world might fall apart, and to spur us forward in times when we can’t see which way to go.