“Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
May I speak in the name of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Of all the seasons in the church’s year, perhaps Advent is the one which often proves the hardest to explain to people who aren’t familiar with it. Even in a context in which most people don’t go to church, large numbers of people will be familiar with a few details of Easter.
Many will be able to identify Lent as a period of fasting and giving things up and of course, Christmas is one of the greatest examples of a religious festival cutting through to the popular imagination that the world has ever seen.
What then of Advent?
Seen by so many as the starting gun for the Christmas season and therefore caught up with many of the traditions associated with that festival rather than retaining a distinctive character in its own right.
There is of course a deeply rich well of theology, tradition and liturgy springing from this period in the church’s year.
Advent is at its heart about expectation and awaiting. About anticipating that which is to come.
Anticipating that which is to come can of course carry a number of different emotional responses.
Set in its context at this time of year, Advent most obviously anticipated Christmas bringing with it all its light and joy.
Advent is also often used a way to anticipate the eventual coming again of Christ at the end of time, of the point in history where God gathers all things to himself. The time with which Jesus is engaging in our Gospel reading today.
There is a clear sense in which some of the things which are to come, bring with them challenge and turmoil. “There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.”
Standing as we do in a world in which global leaders are struggling to come to terms with the damage we are doing to our planet and a moment in which desperate people are risking and indeed forfeiting their lives in the hope of a better future on the waters of the English channel, we cannot help but be brought to attention by these words.
Whether it is having to wait for things we want or being forced to anxiously anticipate things we fear; waiting can often be a struggle. For many people, waiting doesn’t feel like a natural resting state, even though it is often the situation in which we find ourselves.
Of course, over the last year and a half we’ve all had to do a great deal more enforced waiting than we ever thought we would. Waiting to be able to go out of our homes, waiting to see loved ones, waiting for medical appointments, waiting to go back to work or simply waiting for it all to be over and worrying about what the next days and weeks hold.
There has been much waiting all round.
As Christians, though, this season of Advent gives us a different context for our waiting. It sets all of our need to wait in the context of the hope which is to come. The hope of the coming of Christ at Christmas and the hope of the coming once again of Christ as the final fulfilment of all that God has for his kingdom.
“Now, when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Your redemption is drawing near.
The original Greek that is translated as ‘redemption’ is APOLUTROSIS and it carries with it a broader sense of being released, being set free.
Stand up, raise your heads, because your release is drawing near. The time is coming when you will be set free from the things that bind you, the burdens you are carrying, the anxieties with which you are wrestling. The time is coming. No matter how difficult it may be, God’s light shines in the darkness, even if it only appears to be a tiny flicker.
So what do we do while we wait?
It’s interesting isn’t it that, Jesus doesn’t say to his disciples: don’t worry, everything is going to be completely plain sailing just sit tight and keep your heads down.
Jesus calls them to a much more active stance as they wait expectantly for what is to come. Stand up. Raise your heads.
They are assured that their redemption is drawing near but they are called to engage actively in the world while they wait for it. So we’re not being called to a complacent state in which we simply say, I know that I’m going to be ok so therefore I can put my feet up even though there is turmoil all around me. Equally the assurance we have in the coming of Christ means we can carry hope with us through the times when waiting is tough.
Many of you will be familiar with the work of the theologian Paula Gooder who is currently Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral. In her book The Meaning is In the Waiting, she explores the spirit of advent and talks a lot about times in which we find ourselves between one thing and another, waiting for what God has next for us. The book explores this through the lens of four sets of characters from the Bible whose journeys involved waiting, from Abraham and Sarah through to Mary. It’s an excellent read and if you haven’t already found something to look at during Advent, I would highly recommend it.
In the book, Gooder writes a lot about the nature of waiting and in particular this more engaged form of waiting. She writes “Advent calls us into a state of active waiting: a state that recognises and embraces the glimmers of God’s presence in the world and that speaks the truth about the almost-but-not-quite nature of our Christian living. Advent summons us to the present moment, to a still yet active commitment to the life we live now.”
As in so many other areas of our life of faith, we are not expected to do any of this alone. One of the great things about Advent is that it gives us the opportunity to wait together, to be expectant together, to embrace the glimmers of God’s present in the world together.
Advent Sunday last year was in fact my first public appearance at Hampstead Parish Church as it was the day on which my curacy here was announced.
Because of the pandemic, I wasn’t here. Anouk and I were in our college flat in Cambridge and everyone except Jeremy was on zoom. At that point I was certainly engaged in a significant amount of active waiting. A large part of us was really looking forward to coming home to London and to being part of this community here. But there were things that needed to be done while we were waiting. Studies, exams and the small matter in my case of an ordination.
However, during that time and in the months since I have been blessed to be here. I have seen countless examples of the ways in which the glimmers of God’s presence in the world are manifested here. The ways in which the community here stuck together during the worst days of the pandemic, reaching out to the vulnerable and isolated. The determination to continue with prayer and worship through the use of technology and different ways of engaging with our children and young people. The talent and ingenuity of our musicians. And, as restrictions were eased, the further sparks of God’s light in being able to worship together in person, being able to put on community events, the joy of seeing people across the generations coming forward to be baptised and confirmed.
The glimmers of God’s presence in the world are breaking through as we enter this season of Advent together. Even as we attempt to anticipate the ongoing development of the pandemic, we do so in the knowledge that God is with us, that our hope is in him and that we are doing this together.
So as we enter this season of expectation, anticipation and waiting. I wonder if there are things with which God is calling each of us to engage with a little more. I wonder if there are opportunities, even amongst the business of the coming weeks, for us to carve out some space to wait with God, to discern what he might be saying to us in this “in between” time as we look forward to the joy of his coming at Christmas, knowing that as we wait we do so in the hope of his coming again to gather all things to him.
Let us stand up, raise our heads because the God who made us and loves us, is drawing near to us to set us free, this Advent and always.
Amen