Posts Tagged ‘anticipation’

Jesus’ coming – joyful anticipation or fearful expectation?

December 2, 2023

Advent 1 – 2023

Mark 13:24-37

(Is 64:1-9, Ps 80:1-7, 17-19, 1 Cor 1:1-9)

In the name of God, whose coming we celebrate with joy and whose return we anticipate with trepidation. Amen.

Though it is hard to avoid the fact that the rest of the world is already celebrating Christmas, I continue to love the season of Advent. For me it represents a time of quiet anticipation – a time to focus on the real meaning of Christmas – the gentle in-breaking into our world of God’s chosen one, the vulnerability of God in the infant Jesus, and the courage of Mary and Joseph. It is, for me, a time of wonder and joy, as I ponder the gradual unfolding of the story.

So it is that I am often taken aback by the violence and threat that lie in the gospel set for today, the first Sunday of Advent. We find no quiet waiting in Mark 13. There is no sense of hopeful expectancy. Instead, we are presented with a picture of God’s sudden and terrible explosion into the world.  An eruption that is accompanied by the destruction not only of the earth, but of the cosmos. The sun will be darkened, and the stars will fall from heaven. Without any warning all of the powers of heaven will be shaken. Keep awake, we are warned – for you do not know when the time will come: “in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow or at dawn.” There is no room here for peaceful contemplation on the birth of Christ. Instead, we are placed on edge, forced in a state of constant alertness in which we worry about what it means to keep awake. We are left wondering if we have to live in a state of constant vigilance (never truly living in the present) – always looking over our shoulder for God to surprise us, always straining ahead, always worrying about our every action just in case God should burst in and find us wanting?  

Of course, it would be utterly exhausting live in a state of constant anxiety, to be always on the lookout for something negative to happen, always terrified that we would be caught out. So – what to do? What are we to make of the warnings in Mark’s gospel and how do they inform our observation of the season of Advent?

The answer lies, I believe exactly in the tension – the tension between the unobtrusiveness of Jesus’ first coming and the unmistakable disruption of his coming again; the tension between Christ’s coming as an infant and Christ’s coming again as judge of all; the tension between the powerlessness of the baby and the ultimate power of the Creator of the Universe. Advent –  with its focus on beginnings and endings – highlights the tension between the God who loved us enough to become one of us and the God who will one day ask us to give an account for our lives, the tension between trusting in God’s mercy and not taking it for granted, the tension between knowing God’s love and not taking advantage of that love and the tension between knowing that though our salvation has been won, we still have a responsibility for our salvation..

Advent provides us with a time to look back and to look forward, a time to remember all that God has done for us and a time to ask ourselves what our response to God’s love has been and whether or not we would be pleased to see God now. 

The warning to ‘keep awake’ is not so much to keep us in a state of hypervigilance, but rather a timely reminder that we should not get too comfortable, not to fall into complacency. It is a warning against the assumption that a happy ending awaits us all, just because God has entered into history. 

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Learning to live in this in between time, coping with the tension between God’s breaking into the world, and God’s breaking the world apart, teaches us to live with uncertainty, with the “not-knowing” – not knowing the mind of God, not knowing when Christ will return, not knowing exactly how we measure up. Living with the tension between the times keeps us open to what God has to say to us in the present and what God might be doing in our lives right now. In this in-between time, expecting God to appear at any moment, keeps us alert and expectant, enabling us to see the ways in which God is always breaking into the present. Keeping awake ensures that we do not miss any opportunity and ensures that we are prepared for anything that God might reveal or that God might do.

In two thousand years, the sky hasn’t fallen in, the cosmos hasn’t been dramatically. It is difficult to believe in the second coming, to maintain the sense of urgency that pervades this morning’s gospel and yet, we need the message of Mark 13 even more than the church for whom it was written. 

At this time of year, it is easy to get caught up in the sentimentality of Christmas – the stars and angels, the shepherds and wise ones, the hope, joy, comfort and promise of the visible signs of God’s love. The evangelist knew only too well how easy it is to get comfortable, to see the return of Christ as a distant, even unlikely possibility. He knew too, that his own generation had been caught by surprise, had failed to see in the infant in a manger and in itinerant preacher, the one sent by God to save the world. So, with words of dire warning, Mark urges his readers not to get too comfortable, not to assume that because Jesus had not returned that they could start to relax, but to so order their lives that Christ could come at any time and we would be ready.

In this season as we prepare for both our Christian and our secular Christmas, let us be filled with joyful anticipation as we await the birth of Christ and some trepidation, as we expect his coming again.

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Anticipation and Trepidation – the two faces of Advent

December 5, 2015

Advent 2 – 2015

Malachi 3:1-4, Song of Zechariah, Philippians 1:1-11, Luke 3:1-6

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed. Amen.

Advent is an extraordinary time of year. From both a secular and a religious point of view it is a time of both anticipation and trepidation.

In the secular sense, we are all filled with anticipation in relation to the gathering of family and friends, the giving and receiving of presents and the sharing of good food and drink. Yet such happy expectations are often marred by trepidation – so much can and often does go wrong. Christmas is a time when family disagreements come to light or are accentuated -tensions arise with regard to where and with whom the celebrations should be held and there is always the anxiety that you will have spent a lot of money on what turns out to be the wrong gift.

From a religious point of view there is a sense of anticipation as we look forward to celebrating once again the extraordinary event of God becoming one of us. We relive Advents and Christmases past, experience a sense of nostalgia as we remember Advent traditions (calendars and candles, community carols) and we anticipate the joy of joining with fellow believers at Christmas celebrations in our parishes. In the Anglican tradition our liturgy marks the season with the colour purple, an absence of flowers and the lighting of candles on the Advent wreath – one, then two, then three .. as Christmas draws closer. It is as if we hold our breath expectantly waiting for the birth of Jesus.

However, the sense of excitement is balanced by a feeling of trepidation. Advent has a double meaning, we wait to relive the past, but we also wait for the return of Jesus. We remember and anticipate the Christ child with a sense of wonder and awe, but at the same time we look forward to Christ’s coming in glory – an event that brings with it a sense of trepidation and even fear. There are a number of reasons for this anxiety that can border on terror not least of which are the number of texts that suggest that Jesus’/God’s coming will be accompanied by unnatural events, terrifying signs and the working out of God’s judgement.  It is impossible to predict the timing of Jesus’ return – “it will come like a thief in the night”(Mk 13:35) and we are led to believe that we should be “be pure and blameless” (1 Thess 1:10).

Jesus’ return will be an awesome occasion and we will have to account for our lives, but that does not mean that we should live in abject terror. On the contrary, as our readings today remind us Jesus’ return is not so fearsome that we should live our lives in a state of constant anxiety. Malachi tells us that we “will delight” in God’s messenger (3;1). Paul is confident that the Thessalonians will be ready (1:6). Zechariah (recalling Isaiah) speaks of “a dawn from on high breaking upon us”. Even John the Baptist who has some harsh words to say is confident (again quoting Isaiah) that “all flesh will see the salvation of God (3:6).

Anticipation and trepidation fill Advent (the pre-Christmas season) in equal measure, yet it is easy to focus on one and not the other. For some people the tensions of Christmas are so stressful that there is no joy in the preparation (or even in the celebration) of Christmas. Others are so caught up in the festivities that they have no time to consider the impact of their behaviour on others.

For some Christians, especially those for whom Jesus’ coming again has been used to enforce obedience and subjugation to a particular party line are so terrified that they cannot imagine Jesus’ return as being anything other than a terrifying event. All the joy and wonder have been lost. Others, focusing on God’s generosity and open-heartedness, have a tendency to become complacent, to forget that we owe God everything and that our lives should demonstrate our gratitude and reflect God’s presence in us.

Our church year begins with Advent that sets the tone for our whole Christian journey. The themes and tensions of Advent help us to find a healthy balance between holding God in awe and fear and knowing ourselves completely and unconditionally loved. Keeping the tension between always being alert and ready and yet resting comfortably in the knowledge of being so utterly accepted and treasured. The sense of trepidation which Advent brings keeps us on our toes, forbids us becoming too relaxed, too comfortable, too complacent, stops us from taking God and God’s love for us for granted. At the same time the season of Advent reminds us that God’s love transcends all our missteps, our failures and deliberate faults and comes to us over and over again in the form of a vulnerable infant, reminding us that there is nothing to fear and everything to hope.

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