Strange Hope [Advent 1C]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Luke 21:25-36

Strange Hope

Christmas is a mere twenty-three days away.  So it seems like this Gospel reading should be Joseph and a very pregnant Mary and a weighed-down donkey.  We should be standing at the edge of Bethlehem.  And yet here we are standing at the edge of the apocalypse.

Advent is supposed to be romantic, nostalgic.  Advent is Mary saying yes to the angel in the intimacy of her bedroom.  And Joseph honorably standing by his gal as rumors swirl.  And shepherds huddled around a warming fire.  And a cozy manger flanked by a fuzzy lamb.  Advent is as quaint as a nativity scene that seems to have misplaced that tiny baby Jesus.  Advent is a sepia-toned arrival that arrived so long ago it now feels like a fairy tale, one that spills into our lives every Christmas before Happy New Year’s returns it to storage.

But we, today, begin our Advent not on the dusty road to Bethlehem but in the roaring sea.  We find not the peace of Silent Night but the chaos of a world that is being shaken.  That sweet little baby grows into an apocalyptic prophet who stands at the opening of this season to remind us that there are in fact two Advents.  One came long ago in the darkness of a stable.  The other is coming.  The first arrival was greeted with gifts and great joy.  The second with people fainting from fear.  So no surprise: the first coming of Jesus is the more popular one.

But our Advent begins with us staring down the decidedly less popular second one.  It would seem the appropriate response to this impending Advent, this second coming, is to cower in fear because, well, because Jesus describes a pretty overwhelming scene.  The celestial bodies are flashing some kind of ominous sign.  There is distress, and probably suspicion, among the nations because no one quite knows what is happening with the waves and the seas.  So consuming is the fear that people are just fainting in the streets.  The heavens are shaking.  Creation is coming undone.  The order disordered.  And up in the sky, in addition to all of the strange signs and all of the shaking, there is a person, the Son of Man, arriving on the clouds with power and great glory.  So that’s it; that’s what we get.  It is the first Sunday of Advent.  Where do you go to hide when the world ends?

The end of the world never seems to arrive and yet always feels like it might just be stalking us.  We read the signs today – indefinite wars and climate change and nuclear bombs and biological weapons and artificial intelligence and famine and genocide and refugees forced from their homes and the steady creep of hatred intent on claiming fearful hearts in our nation and around the globe – and it feels like we might be spinning on the brink of the apocalypse.  We have things to fear that folks in the first century could not even imagine.    

We are being stalked by fear.  The world is scary.  The future is scary.  Even this Gospel is scary.  Maybe we should begin this new Church year, this Advent, in a bunker shelving our rations.  Because what we find on the lips of Jesus, what Jesus opens with is fear and foreboding, chaos and catastrophe.  And so what are we to do?  What advice might Jesus give us in the face of so much fear?  Just this: Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

It’s a strange way to talk about hope.  But maybe that is because hope is strange.  We can hear the Doomsday Clock ticking.  We can feel the planet warming.  We can sense the tensions intensifying.  Things don’t look good.  This is the future that is pulling us in.  We can go into it balled up or heads up.  We can walk into the future in fear or we can walk into the future with hope.  Fear makes more sense.  But hope is our answer.

And that is what Advent is about.  Advent is not about the baby at the end of the Advent calendar.  Advent is about hope.  The first Advent was and so is the second.  Advent is about the strange hope that comes wrapped in swaddling clothes.  Advent is about the strange hope that dances on the roaring waves and bursts through the shaking skies.  Advent is about the strange hope that stares down the apocalypse and sees redemption in the end of the world.

One day I was walking on this asphalt path, a black road that spilled through a field of flowers, that buried the life beneath it.  And as I was walking, considering my footsteps and the wind, something caught my attention.  Not quite a burning bush, but also not not a burning bush.  Something strange on the way, in the way.  There was a flower – not terribly unusual since I was walking through a field of wildflowers.  But this flower wasn’t in the field.  It was in the path, or rather it was through the path.  This flower defied the darkness that tried to bury it.  Avoiding it was not an option and so this flower, this one tiny flower, found its way through the asphalt. It looked so delicate and beautiful, and it was, but also it was strong and defiant, so strong and defiant that it broke through the darkness.  “Stand up.  Raise your head.”  Maybe there are signs in the earth – signs of hope.

That is the strange hope of the Advent season.  So delicate and beautiful – as delicate and beautiful as the face of a tiny baby in manger – and yet it is strong enough and defiant enough to push through the darkest darkness.  And it is in you; that hope is in you.  Just because there are things to fear doesn’t mean you have to be afraid.  You are filled with strange hope, Advent hope. 

Sure the world around you is shaking, stand up anyway.  Sure the darkness threatens to bury us, break through that darkness.  You might be small, just one person in a world of too much sin and too much sorrow, but you are filled with some strange hope that is strong enough and defiant enough to break through even the darkest darkness this world has to offer.

We stand up and we lift up our heads not only to look for a savior in the sky.  We stand up and we lift up our heads because we refuse to cower before the forces of evil in this world.  Our hope looks for a future in which “on earth as it is in heaven” in the reality.  Our hope looks for a future in which our redemption rides in on the clouds.  But our hope does not live in some distant future.  Our hope is for this day in this world.

We wait for the Kingdom of God to finally come and set right the insanity and evil of this age, but while we wait for that day we defiantly stand up to the forces of evil today because hope tells us that this world can be better than it is, can love better than it does.  We wait for the Son of Righteousness to rise and cast out the darkness of this age, but while we wait for that day we are compelled by hope to break through the darkness today, to speak the truth, to shine a light on every evil and dehumanizing act that we see.  While we wait, we also work.  We break through the walls of separation today and prepare a way for the redemption that is coming.

Just because a world of justice and peace seems unlikely doesn’t mean it’s not true.  Hope is the thing that looks at the nightmare but believes in the dream.  And so we prepare a way for something that seems unlikely.  We prepare because we hope for the day when violence will give way to peace, when pain will give way to healing, when the hatred and prejudice that plagues us will be swallowed up by an unstoppable love.  We prepare the way because we are possessed by this strange hope that dares to believe that God’s dream for this world will come true, that believes “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” is a prayer that is ready to be answered.  I don’t have any evidence that this will be the case anytime soon because I watch the news, but I do have hope.  I have this strange hope that looks at the skewed reality of our todays, the foreboding future of our tomorrows and still has the audacity to believe that it is redemption that is drawing near. 

It is Advent.  I know that means something is coming – it’s not here yet but it is already true.  The leaves are on the trees.  The signs are bursting through the darkness.  And yes, there are still terrible things lurking in this world.  But don’t be afraid.  Stand up.  Raise your heads.  The future might at times look bleak, but I have this strange hope that tells me: redemption is drawing near.