Sermon 27 November 2016 – Advent Sunday 10:30 a.m. – Isaiah 2: 1 – 5; Romans 13: 11 – end; Matthew 24: 36 – 44
Advent – Waiting for the known and the unknown
First there was Brexit, then the announcement of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. 2016 seems to have been a year of landmark changes in both the national and international arena. And now, since last Sunday, after six months of waiting, we also have our landmark change. We now know the identity of our new Vicar. Jeremy Fletcher. And if we choose to, thanks to the internet, we can find out all sorts of things about him and about the Parish where he’s currently vicar. For me, and perhaps others too, the landscape already looks different because of this. We can perhaps begin to imagine a little better how the future might look.
In all three areas, national, international and parochial, something is known that wasn’t known before. But we also still face much that is unknown. So, as we begin the season of Advent today, I would like to reflect on waiting for the known and the unknown.
Advent is about waiting for Christmas. Children (and some adults!) count off the days on Advent Calendars. I still remember from my childhood the magic of opening each little door to see what the picture might be. (We never had chocolate!). Advent is about waiting for the familiar rituals that Christmas brings. Family visits, parties, the exchange of presents. Or perhaps, for some of us, the usual ways in which we choose to avoid all of this. It’s about waiting for the birth of Christ – the shepherds, the angels, the kings; the wonder of the incarnation and all of the joy that goes with this.
Advent also has a darker, more difficult side. An apocalyptic side. Because it’s also when we think forward to the end of the world. We are living in a middle time between the coming of Christ and the final resolution of all things which God promises will come about. We live with the promise that one day Christ will return, and God’s kingdom and His justice will be established for ever. We don’t know at all clearly what this will mean or when it will happen. As our Gospel today makes clear (Matt 24:36) even Jesus didn’t know. Despite this many have speculated about when the end will come and tried to find answers from the Bible.
So, in Advent, we wait for both the known and the unknown. As Rowan Williams puts it “When Christ comes into the life of the world with something unplanned, overwhelming, something that makes a colossal difference we long for it yet we don’t know quite what it’s going to involve.” Every Advent we prepare again to welcome Christ into our lives. Christ too is always both known and unknown, familiar and uncomfortable. The baby in the manger may fill us with joy, but how do we respond to the idea of Christ the majestic King, or the judge of the world?
So, how might we respond to the known and the unknown this Advent?
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways.” Today’s reading from Isaiah gives us some clues. Here is a picture of a time when all the nations will stream to the mountain of the Lord to learn the ways of God. We’re very good at social action and caring for others in this church, but I wonder how much time we spend learning the ways of God?
I was very struck, while watching the excellent Hampstead Players’ production of King Lear this week, by the way in which a number of the characters undergo deep learning and change over the course of the play. Lear, Gloucester and Edgar all have their time in the wilderness. They are literally cast out of the warmth and comfort of their privileged homes to live as outcasts exposed to the fury of the elements. All their certainties and security are gone. Here Lear learns about humanity, about love. The blinded Gloucester sees the truth about his sons, and the trusting Edgar grows up very quickly to the truth about his brother. What they have all previously been unable to see suddenly becomes clear.
In King Lear the wilderness is a liminal place. A threshold to a different way of seeing. A place where change is possible. As our future Vicar Jeremy put it, in the sermon which we quoted on the weekly email this week ‘The edge, the borderland, is where … the love of God is discovered’
Advent too, with it’s strange mix of the known and the unknown, can be a borderland place, a place of discovery, if we allow it to be so.
In our December Parish magazine there are some very practical suggestions of websites and books which could help to make Advent such a place. And if you think you are too busy – in my experience it’s surprising how much difference just a moment or two of quiet thinking or prayer can make. It’s not the amount of time we spend that matters, but the quality of our attention.
“Is this the promised end?” asks the Earl of Kent, at the end of King Lear. If the busyness, the tinsel and the trappings of Christmas preparation leave you unsatisfied, wanting more, this might be a question to ponder. There is more to be discovered in the unknown, in the waiting, in the darkness of Advent if we are prepared to spend time there.
“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”
Amen