Posts Tagged ‘trepidation’

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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Equal measures of anticipation and trepidation

November 30, 2013

Advent 1, 2013

 Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122, Romans 13:9-14, Matthew 24:36-44 

Marian Free

 In the name of God who both comforts and disturbs, who has come among us and who will come again. Amen.

During the week I conducted a limited survey to see what sort of event or activity made different people both excited and terrified at the same time. Sally thought it would be getting ready for a parachute jump, Jon said that it was his impending ordination. Michael said that for him it would be preparing for a band performance. A Facebook friend expressed both joy and fear at the prospect of moving house.

I’m sure that it is the same for all of us. When we do something new or adventurous, we are filled both with excitement and trepidation. We have a sense of anticipation that the adventure or experience will expand our horizons or bring a sense of achievement, or that the new skill, new home will enrich our lives in some way. That said, no matter how many precautions we have taken, no matter how prepared we are for the event, there is always a sense of stepping into the unknown. We cannot know the outcome until we step out in faith and because we cannot know the end result, there is always the fear that whatever it is may not work out as we had hoped, that we are not up to the task, or that something unexpected will crop up and undermine all our expectations.

There are a number of occasions that make us both nervous and excited, and which have us filled with equal amounts of anticipation and dread. I would contend that Advent is (or should be) such a time.

If we are honest, most of us at this time of year are busy getting ready for Christmas. That means that we are buying presents, thinking about menus, organizing the family get together and hanging decorations. We know that it is Advent because the church is using the colour purple, we have an Advent Wreath and the Pew Bulletin tells us what Season it is.  Sometimes, that is the extent of our Advent preparation. We are filled with anticipation because Christmas is coming, we will see our families, exchange gifts and enjoy the Christmas services. It is a wonderful time of year, filled with expectation for the future and memories of the past. Advent fades into the background, not least because in the world around us, preparation for Christmas began months ago.

Of course, we know that Christmas is really about Jesus, about God’s coming among us over two thousands years ago. At best, we are filled with a sense of wonder that God could choose to be so fully part of human experience that despite all our shortcomings God would send Jesus to save us.

However, as our readings remind (or even warn) us, Advent is much more than a warm, fuzzy expectation about Christmas. The Season of Advent has the dual purpose of preparing us to welcome once more the child of God among us and also of reminding us of our need to be ready for Jesus’ coming again. It is the former that fills us with anticipation and joy and the latter which fills us with a certain amount of trepidation and even dread. While we should be as excited to greet the returning Jesus as we are to celebrate the infant Jesus, we tend to be at least a little anxious about the thought of Jesus’ coming again, an anxiety fueled not a little by the New Testament descriptions of such an event.

In today’s readings the emotions of hope and fear are equally balanced. The Old Testament reading and the Psalm look forward in anticipation to that time when God shall come, but the New Testament readings sound a note of warning and suggest that Jesus’ return will not be so benign. Isaiah chapter 2 and Psalm 122 envisage a wonderful time when all people shall turn to God and there will be peace among the nations. However, Paul’s words from the letter of Romans teach us to temper our expectation with caution. He writes: “You know what time it is” and urges his readers to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light”. “Salvation is nearer than when we first believed.”  It is because our salvation is near that it is essential that Jesus not find us in reveling and drunkenness, quarreling and jealousy. NOW (not next week) is the time to put our lives in order, to be confident that, should Jesus come tomorrow, we would be ready and happy to greet him.

It is the words of today’s Gospel however, that are the most ominous. We are reminded that we do not know when Jesus will come. There will be no warning. Jesus’ coming will be unexpected and many will be caught unprepared. We are told that will be getting on with our everyday lives when suddenly, without notice, Jesus will be here among us. Just as the thief catches a householder unprepared, so too Jesus will come upon us when we least expect him.

The message is this: “keep awake!” – expect Jesus’ return at any moment. Ensure that there is nothing in our lives that we would want to hide from his view. Be aware that at any moment Jesus could come upon us unawares. If there was a cause to be anxious about Jesus’ return, this would be it – that Jesus would come and we would not be ready – that there would be some aspect of our lives that would not stand up to closer inspection.

The Season of Advent provides us with a time to examine our lives; to open ourselves to God’s scrutiny, to ask ourselves whether – if Jesus were to come upon us now – there be anything we would wish that we had put right beforehand.

“About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” There is no reason for fear – the coming of Christ among us is a cause for rejoicing – the earth will be renewed, God’s reign will be firmly established. Jesus’ coming again will herald the dawn of a new day when pain and suffering will cease and there will be harmony between the nations. Jesus will come again as he did before – to save and not condemn. Our task is to lead lives worthy of Jesus’ love for and trust in us.  Confident in that love we will welcome his return with the same joy and enthusiasm with which we rejoice in his birth.

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