Keep Awake [Advent 1B - Mark 13:24-37]

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Mark 13:24-37

 

Keep Awake

 

For Lincoln, Nebraska businessman, Robert Kay the fourth time was the charm.  His first three attempts to summit Mount Everest had ended in disappointment; the fourth in pinnacular triumph.  But reaching the “roof of the world” is never the end of the story.  The final goal is getting back home.  And the most dangerous part of the entire expedition is after the apex, between the peak and the base of the mountain.  The most important thing one must do is keep awake during the decent back through the “Death Zone.”  And too often climbers do not.

 

“It was like watching a character die in a television show, Robert Kay said [in a story reported on Nebraska’s NPR network.] Except it was real.

Kay thought he was dying.

‘It was a detached sensation,’ he recalled. ‘I didn’t feel scared or upset. I know where [and] when I'm going to die and it's right here in a few seconds. Not many people get to know exactly where and when they're going to die, and I do and that's interesting. It didn't seem terrifying at the time.’

He was on the way down from the summit of Mount Everest, his body quickly losing a battle with high altitude in the so-called “Death Zone” of the world’s highest mountain. Sherpa guides trying to help Kay decided they needed to change his oxygen bottle. But cold hands and ice slowed the switch.

‘When they unhooked it’, he said ‘it felt like somebody immediately just had pushed my head underwater. I started spasming and I'm laying on the ground on my side and it hurt so bad. I thought ‘this is it.’”

…Kay said he felt good until he was an hour or so into the descent, which was still bottle-necked by slow moving climbers.

‘It wasn't bad at first,’ Kay recalled. ‘I was just, ‘oh I’m a bit breathless.’ By the time I got to the south summit, which…should have been 20…minutes of walking, it took me two hours. I realized then that I was in trouble. I would sit down for a rest and take 50 breaths. I would count 50…breaths and feel no improvement at all.’

More Everest climbers die on the way down from the summit than the way up. That’s because they’ve been at very high altitude for a long time, and deadly altitude sickness conditions…can set in. That was happening to Robert Kay. Fluid was filling his lungs and swelling his brain. ‘I set a goal of…30 steps before I sit down again,’ he said, ‘and it seemed like most of the time I couldn't reach 30 steps.’

 

‘Words can't describe how tired you feel. You want to do one thing, you want to sit down (and) go to sleep, and yet from all the things you have read, your experience and the lessons you've learned from others' mistakes, if you sit down and rest for a long time you are never getting up again. Especially if you should fall asleep. You'll just never wake up.’”[1]

Sometimes sleep is just so tempting.  When I was in college sleep was my go-to stress response.  When no amount of studying assuaged my frazzled nerves, I would calm my fears with a nice nap. When an evening vocal performance haunted my day, I could hide from the butterflies in my cozy bed.  During this one stretch of sophomore year in which my computer died, my car was busted up and burgled, my brake system went out, and my minimum wage work-study paycheck was not up to the task, unconsciousness was my great (temporary) escape.  When the problems of the world tried to relentlessly crush me under their weight, I could think of no better place of refuge than sleep.

 

And yet like a Sherpa on the mountain, Jesus takes our weary face in his hands and shakes us to consciousness.  Salvation seldom feels like we expect it to.  His persistent message: keep awake! 

 

It is a message for our times – important and bitter to the taste.  More than nine months into this pandemic, vigilance is exhausting.  When this thing started, I was disappointed that we could not fill the nave for two Sundays.  That was the initial request from the Bishop: close the doors of your buildings for two Sundays.  At the time that seemed like a lot.  That sprint slowly morphed into a marathon.

 

Keep awake is a reasonable short-term strategy; it is a challenging life-plan.  When Jesus gave this charge to his first followers, they expected his return to be imminent.  In the book of Acts, they kept staring at the sky after Jesus’ ascension because he promised to return.  And then, after the angels commanded them to be a little patient, they holed up with their friends in a room to wait patiently – for ten days.

 

By the time the Gospel of Mark was written, the followers of Jesus had been waiting for decades.  The first generation of Church leaders had been killed by the authorities, the Temple was a heap of rubble, and they were hiding in the catacombs.  They were living at the end of the world.  And still no Jesus.  And all that echoed through their heads was this most devastating piece of advice: keep awake.

 

Every year it is the same thing.  A new year, the same message.  Every Advent 1 it is always Jesus telling us to stay awake.  Because every year it is so tempting to disengage, to fall into a blissful stupor, to turn off this world and all of its problems, to pack away the hope to which we so feebly cling.  Sometimes sleep is just so tempting.  The challenges of life are always too complex; solutions always evasive; the injustice as persistent as Jesus’ Advent mantra.  And, let’s be honest, there is an extraordinarily tempting buffet of substances and devices and distractions that promise to numb us into oblivion, to help us escape the pain and difficulties of this life.  And they are packaged and promoted very well.

 

And still we are told to keep awake.  And God knows that is not easy.  God knows the night feels long.  God knows there are days in which the suffering of this world collapses on our weary souls.  God knows it is hard to stay awake when our eyes have seen too much and our arms have carried the weight of the world for far too long. 

 

And still Jesus begs us to keep awake.  Jesus calls us to fight back the despair, to open our blood-shot eyes to the world’s pain, to hope even when we have run out of reasons to hope.  Jesus says keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.  Stay awake; for you do not know when hope will come true, when love will finally overwhelm the brokenness of this world; you do not know when beauty will shatter the seemingly inexhaustible supply of ugliness and hatred; you do not know when justice will tear open the heavens and come down; you do not know when Jesus will return with healing in his wings and peace in his scarred hands; you do not know and you do not want to miss it. 

 

Keep awake.  This world will make you drowsy.  But keep awake.  The days will grow long.  But keep awake.  Your bones will feel weary and your eyelids heavy.  But keep awake.  Because Advent is not just a season; it is a promise, the light at the end of the tunnel.  The Kingdom of God is coming; it is breaking through the cracks even now.  If you are asleep, you will miss it.  And you don’t want to miss it.  So keep awake. 

 

 

 

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[1] Story from: http://netnebraska.org/article/news/1029247/nebraskan-climbed-mount-everest%E2%80%A6and-it-almost-killed-him