Advent 1 – 2021
Luke 21:25-38
Marian Free
In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.
On the 26th of July, Marmour Kunpeter wrote for Anglican Focus: “I fled South Sudan for Ethiopia when I was 11. The journey across the desert without clothing or shoes was very bad. We travelled for many days – we walked for more than a month across the desert to escape the persecution of the Khartoum government who wanted to abduct boys so they couldn’t join the rebel groups once they became older.
More than 20,000 boys walked across the desert as unaccompanied minors. We are known as the ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’. There were seven from my extended family and we walked with 13,000 others. I left my parents with only the food I could carry, which my mum packed for me, and a two litre container of water. My mum packed simsim for me, a sort of produce like peanuts that doesn’t need cooking so it was easy to eat. I didn’t see my parents again.
We travelled at nighttime, mostly so the Khartoum government military in helicopters could not find us. We ran out of food quickly and ate wild animals, although not all of us would get a portion. It was a struggle. The desert was very dry and it was dangerous. We could be abducted. Many were eaten by wild animals. Some children were eaten by lions. Most children who died just fell asleep and did not get up as they were too weak to walk any further.” Once the group entered Ethiopia it took three months before the United Nations came with food and water, by then many more children had died.
Unless we have had a similar experience, it is impossible to really understand the privations that some people go through and still come out the other side – the death camps of the Holocaust, the civil war in Syria, people-trafficking, the persecution of the Rohingya are just a few of the horrific examples that come to mind.
The gospels were written at a time when the violent and murderous march of Titus through Galilee and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem were fresh in the minds of many. Not only had the siege of that city by Rome led to starvation and desperation, but the in-fighting between the different sects of Judaism had made the situation even worse. After five months, the Romans entered the city and razed it to the ground so that it could not once again become a focus for dissension and rebellion. Those for whom the gospels were written would have known only too well how uncertain and precarious life could be. Jesus’ words as reported by Luke, would have provided reassurance and a sense of optimism to his community – reassurance that catastrophic events such as the destruction of Jerusalem (and with it the Temple) were not unexpected, and a sense of optimism that God is present even in the very worst of circumstances.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year, yet we begin at the end of the story – Jesus’ warning of future events in the days before his death. This is perhaps because Jesus is referring to an end that is also a beginning, to devastation that has within it the seeds of the future. As Advent continues our readings will move us from upheaval, through promise to joyous expectation. Together they serve as a reminder that, with or without faith, life rarely runs smoothly, that there may well be times when our hopes are dashed and our expectations shattered, when we are forced to face difficulties and obstacles for which we were unprepared.
As the church year continues, we will experience the full gamut of human emotions – terror and hope, despair and joy, disappointment, and surprise, wonder and confusion. In the stories of Jesus’ followers, we will witness excitement and expectation as well as foolishness and betrayal. The gospels are not a record of dry, historical events, but a microcosm of human experience, a reassurance that our experiences are not unique but are shared (to a greater or lesser extent) by all humanity. All of us will at some time or another have our lives turned upside down – by external events (war, COVID, natural disaster), by personal issues (the death of a loved one, a diagnosis of a terminal or deteriorative disease). At such moments, Jesus assures us, God will not have abandoned us. Indeed, as many of us can attest, it is often when our world seemed to be falling apart that we discovered that God was closer than we had thought.
In the midst of his unimaginable travails, Marmour found God. “It was at this time when I was 11 years old that I began to have a relationship with God. In Ethiopia there was a church that I went to. It was there that I found out about the Israelites and how they travelled a long way on foot. After hearing their story, instead of thinking so much about going back to my parents, I thought to myself that this is what I had to live with, that this is my life now. I thought about what I had experienced and decided that there had to be some kind of power – something that was sustaining my life.”
Now in Brisbane, Marmour is married with six children and studying for his Bachelor of Theology. His story is a powerful illustration of God’s presence in the worst of circumstances and a reminder that, at the start of another year, a year in which anything could happen, that in good times and bad the kingdom of God is near and that “Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus’ words will never pass away.”
May we face whatever lies ahead with courage and with confidence that when we need God most, God will be most near.
Tags: Advent, catastrophe, destruction, disaster, expectation, God is near, Marmour, upheaval
Swallowsrest 