Stephen
Baldwin
OT:
Jeremiah 33.14-16
NT:
Luke 21.25-36
Beginning at the Ending
In Advent, we live in the unsettling tension between what is and what will be. And we all know exactly what that feels like.
It’s like pulling an all-nighter,
staying up all night to work another shift or to finish a paper for school, or staying
awake helping Saint Nicholas put together toys.
It’s like flying to a different time
zone and suddenly feeling the slow burn of jet lag the next morning.
It’s like being asked to do two things
at once or look in two directions at the same time.
That’s what the unsettling tension of
Advent is like, caught in the middle of what is and what will be. We not
only look back at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, but we also look forward to
his eventual return when the kingdom he began over two thousand years ago will
eventually be completed.
Today, on the first Sunday of Advent
(the first day of the new year in the church calendar), we begin at the
end. Why? Why does the church calendar ask us to begin
the new year at the end of Jesus’ story?
So that we’ll know where were’ going.
It’s the same thing I do at weddings.
When I officiate a wedding and we gather
to rehearse the service the night before, I ask the wedding party to begin at
the end. The bride and groom take their
places, the wedding party lines up on each side accordingly, the ring bearer
and flower girl are told which adult will be their guide, and everyone knows
exactly where to be. Then I ask everyone
to leave, and we start at the beginning.
Because then and only then do they know where they are going and how to
get there.
We begin at the end for the same reason
in Advent. So we know where we’re going
and how to get there.
In today’s reading from Jeremiah, the
prophet speaks a word of hope amidst the unsettling tension of living in a time
between what is and what will be. The
city of Jerusalem was completely destroyed in 587BC, with Jeremiah writing in
the aftermath. The Israelites were once
again scattered from their homeland, living as refugees in foreign lands. They didn’t know if they’d ever get to go
home again. They didn’t know if they’d
see their families again. They wondered
if God abandoned them. It was an
unsettling time, so God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “The days
are surely coming, when I will fulfill my promise.”
Perhaps you know what it feels like to
be stuck in between what is and what will be.
Author Janice Springer wrote about such a time following her diagnosis
of Parkinson’s disease. She says, “There
have been many losses (since that day).”
She used to feel strong and vibrant, but now she struggles every moment
to simply stay on her feet. She has lost
friends and activities and routines of days gone by, but she says the most
painful loss is: “I’ve lost my illusions.
I’ve lost the illusion that I am exempt from the losses and limits that
besiege other people.”
In Advent, we live in the unsettling
tension between what is and what will be.
We know where we’ve been, we can see where we’re going, but we don’t
know exactly how to get there. Jesus
compares it to a fig tree. When we see
it begin to sprout leaves, we know summer is near. We don’t know exactly how long it will take,
but we know it’s coming.
If you look and listen and open your
heart, you can see the kingdom of God sprouting leaves. We don’t know how long it will take to
arrive, but we know it’s coming. That’s
why we begin Advent at the end. We
remind ourselves--amidst all the unsettled tensions of life, of wars and rumors
of war, of injustices and insincerities--that Jesus is taking us on a
journey. We do not walk alone. We cannot find it ourselves. We go with him. We must trust him to guide us.
Advent is a season of waiting. As hard as it is, especially when the world
seems so unsettled, we wait for the hope that sprouts like leaves on a fig
tree. We look forward to a day when all
will be well. We look back to times when
all was not well. Most importantly, we
look around now, when all is well and nothing is well, depending on where you
sit.
And we wait. We wait for the birth. We wait for the boy. We wait for the king. We wait for hope to be born…anew. Amen.
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