Luke’s stories of the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, and his cousin, Jesus put both in the tradition of Old Testament patriarchs, prophets and leaders; Isaac, Moses, Samson and Samuel are all introduced with stories of unusual, although not un-hoped for, pregnancies and survivals.
This foretelling is feature of Old Testament religion, one which Christianity has adopted and modified. There is a sense that salvation, or the Promised Land is at a distance, to be waited for, but seldom reached. Most obviously the Israelites must wander for forty years before they can arrive in Canaan, and when they do arrive they do not find the land of milk and honey exactly welcoming. Perhaps more significant, for the mind-set of Jews in Jesus’ time and beyond, was the second exile in Babylon and eventual return. The writers of this period, as they recorded the earlier tradition may well have coloured if not partially invented the stories of exile in Egypt and the longed for return. Thus the theme of longing for a Promised Land, or for return, is embedded in the Bible, and in Jewish and our own religious experience and we heard it this morning in our reading from Baruch.
Alongside the geographical metaphor of longing, hope and expectation, is a personal one in the form of the Messiah. The feeling that a great leader was waiting in the wings to throw out the Romans and restore Israel’s independent sovereignty seems to have been the strongest political and religious question of the time; Jesus ministry is constantly viewed against the messianic model the direct question Was he the Messiah? is asked several times.
More subtly the Gospels ask what being a messiah would really mean. And that question is introduced in Luke’s Gospel in the two most familiar canticles- the Benedictus, which we have just sung, Zechariah’s predictions for his son John, and the Magnificat which we’ll sing next week in which Mary sets out an agenda for her son. Both, of course are full of hope; of the fulfilment of promises and the realisation of God’s will. That realisation has two distinct but intertwined aspects; on the one hand it is concerned with society, explicitly with the nation of Israel but also all the issue of Abraham, and its message is political, or at least economic; we are to be saved from the hand of our enemies; and the hungry are to be fed while the rich are sent away empty handed. On the other hand the promised salvation is personal; we are promised forgiveness of our sins and the comfort of the light of dawn, as we sit in darkness.
These two strands continue, of course, in the life and work of Jesus and they run though our Christian experience which offers both the comfort of salvation and grace –essentially on a personal level, as well as the challenge of building a just and righteous society. Both are vital although I sometimes think the comfort of the individual experience may turn us to much in on ourselves, and away from the task of spreading the Gospel and building the Kingdom. Introspection and reflection are, however, the stuff of Advent, the prelude to Church’s year when we wait in increasing darkness for the days to shorten until they can shorten more and we know a new year is dawning.
This feeling of expectation and hope is natural to us, but it’s also a bit strange. Unlike the ancient Israelites and the Jews of today, we believe as Christians that the Promised Land, the Messiah, Salvation – however you call it, has arrived. So why should we look forward to an event that we know has happened? It’s a fundamental feature of the incarnation that it happened in history; God really intervened in the world and as a man died and rose again. These are events of timeless significance but crucially set in time; so why do we feel we need to wait for them again?
The obvious answer is that we need reminding, and that grace is available to us despite our unworthiness is, after all, an incredible fact. We live lives that are governed on the one hand by the cycle of the seasons and on the other take the form of a continuous line, a journey, with no turning back, from birth to death. The seasons make us ever expectant of change, aware that we are in a cycle, always looking forward to the exuberance of Spring, always half depressed and half nourished by the prospect hibernation. But we are equally aware of growth and change that will not repeat. When I was eight or so, I longed (with a little apprehension) to be a teenager like my elder siblings; when I was a teenager I wanted to be at university, like they were; now that I am contemplating retirement, and beyond, the longing is tinged with rather greater apprehension. But anxious, comforting or joyous the expectation and the looking ahead remain.
Our religious experience mirrors this, as the church too has its seasons, constantly reminding us of the central story of our faith, and repeating the experience. The early church was much exercised about the exact date of Easter as it was important that the remembering, re-living and the celebration of the events of Good Friday and Easter should be on the days that they really happened. Without being too concerned about the exact date (and December is historically pretty unlikely) we too can feel that God really is coming into the world again at Christmas- even though we know he is here already, and always has been. These seasonal reminders and re-enactments are similar to weekly re-enactment that we experience in the Eucharist; we know we have grace, but it good to have it regularly topped up, and to be aware that it’s a thing we share with others.
This cyclical remembering is, however, a slightly superficial answer to my question why we feel the need to look forward, why we long for things we know we have. The linear view of life, a constantly changing progression, may provide a deeper explanation. With the longing for change there is also a questioning about who we are and what we really want, and as I have suggested, often an apprehension about apparent progress. The season of Advent reflects this as it is not only the time when we look forward to the arraival of Jesus as a baby, but also his second coming in glory and judgement. 2000 years later we cannot, I think, take the second coming as literally as the Gospel writers and St Paul9as in his letter to the Philippians but I suggest we sould see it as present reminder that we need to live our lives with an awareness of eternal values- essentially perhaps just an awareness that our actions have consequences, sometimes very long term consequences.
More optimistically, however, as we look forward with Zechariah and Mary, we are asked to take a close look at what the coming Good News is to be. We are invited to ask ourselves what it is we are really longing for. It’s a time when we can reflect on the balance between personal salvation and the duty to reach out. It’s a time to consider the ways in which active charity and contemplative spirituality feed one another. These are reflections which, of course, come to a head at Christmas itself, when the sense of comfort, familiar, even cosy, religiosity is matched by a active consciousness of the less fortunate, a time when our generosity is not just to those whom we love but to the many charities working to make the world a fitter place for baby king that just arrived in such very peculiar circumstances. That I think is why Advent, although only an approach is somehow more satisfying that the arrival; it the time we can think about where it is we are going and what we want when we get there. Amen.