A PREGNANT PAUSE

 

Last week, several days before Thanksgiving, I found a catalog in my mailbox that proclaimed: “Last Minute Gift Ideas!” For someone who hasn’t even started shopping, this was rather jarring… And since I refused to set foot in a mall on “Black Friday,” as this past Friday is known in the retail ‘biz, my minutes for gift procurement are steadily ticking away.

 

But, surely it’s not the last minute yet!  I’ve been looking forward to some time for preparing – beginning today, the first day of the season of Advent, the time the Church sets aside to get ready for Christ’s coming. I’d like to savor these few weeks, doing a little bit here and a little bit there, trying to make the most of this time as a family season.

 

The giant Advent Calendar at the bottom of the stairs, near the kitchen, is an opportunity to give and to receive some ideas for doing just that: preparing gradually, with some old and new activities, crafts and recipes, for the holy event of Christmas this year. Everyone on the St. Luke’s mailing list also received some ideas in the form of our annual, blue-colored booklet called “Worship and Devotions for the Home in Advent and Christmastide.” (If you didn’t get one in this latest issue of the Voice, there are more on the side table or downstairs.)

 

So this year, I refuse to be rushed into Christmas.  I threw out that catalog. I shall resist humming along to Frosty and Jingle Bells set to Muzak, and try to avoid inhaling that nauseating cinnamon pot-pourri spray (or whatever the stuff is) that infests all departments of the Bon Ton. It is not the last minute, darn it!

 

And yet… and yet… it is the last minute, insists our Gospel lesson this morning. Keep awake, don’t put things off, because Christ is coming soon. Perhaps this evening, perhaps as midnight , or cock-crow, or dawn. Don’t let down your guard: you just don’t know when it might be time.

 

Oh, great.  Like I need this message right now, like the church needs this message right now! Just as we are gearing up to combat the commercial onslaught, we get this doom-and-gloom, get-ready-for-the-end-times stuff, not only today but every First Sunday of Advent. And every first Sunday of Advent, I wonder why – why push it, why give us this particular admonition now.

 

For nearly 2000 years, the Church has been waiting for Jesus to come back. The Gospel of Mark was written in the 60s – just, the 60s – and was feeling the pinch of growing persecution, especially by the Roman government. Why wasn’t He back yet??  For whatever reason, they had to wait.  It wasn’t easy. So, drawing on Old Testament images of cosmic catastrophe and cataclysmic omens, perhaps the rewinding of creation itself, Mark’s community anticipated and watched for that moment, the return of the Bridegroom, the Master of the House, the Lord.

 

That waiting has remained part of our theology: not as a precious and puzzling bit of historical trivia, but an ongoing reality of our life in Christ, reaffirmed in our Eucharistic prayers as “we proclaim the mystery of faith:” Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

 

Sometimes we feel that longing more urgently; sometimes we’re feeling pretty good about our lives and our future, or pretty bleak about our need to repent, and are quite sure we DON’T want Jesus to come back just yet. To all such situations, these “apocalyptic” passages remind us of his promise to return, which is good news, not bad.

For, we look forward to the culmination of all things, all our hopes and longings for this broken world, and our own broken hearts and broken lives.

 

Really it is a season of pregnancy – not me personally, I assure you, but all of us: we are all awaiting a birth, long ago and any day now, Christ coming among us in little ways to prepare us for the big one.

 

Any family that has awaited the birth of a new baby knows the joy of making those preparations. Margaret was born in January, so for Eric and me, and our extended families, Advent of 1997 was truly the home stretch. Eric finished painting the nursery, I made and hung curtains, we assembled furniture and wrote thank-you’s for shower gifts.

 

I treasure those memories now, thanking God not only for both our children, but for the time and the means to prepare for their arrivals. Not everyone is so fortunate, as I am well aware. But Advent is a gift, it is the Church’s opportunity to get ready for birth; and like an expectant mother, to savor each chance to do so, to prepare some part of our selves, our home, our church and community, for the miracle that is Emmanuel.

 

I don’t want to imply, however, that Advent should be filled with busy-ness and projects. Although the memories are starting to fade I still do recall that pregnancy is tiring and naps are encouraged. Perhaps this seems to conflict with the instruction to “Keep awake!” But, spiritual wakefulness means focus, not busy work, a conscious tuning-out of the hubbub of daily life, in favor of quietness within. Our culture is full of temptations to divert our attention, to fill our longings for God with other, more easily grasped, purchased, or consumed things. To these Jesus warns, “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time – the crucial moment of decision – will come.”

 

The four hours mentioned – evening, midnight , cock-crow and dawn – were the four Roman watches of the night. In fact, in the Roman army of Jesus’ day,  a guard could be executed for falling asleep while on duty! While that sounds rather harsh, it reflected a harsh reality: That guard’s alertness was the only protection against the enemy breaching the defenses and overpowering the whole garrison or village.  

 

Our spiritual well-being is under siege, too. Keeping focused, staying awake, resisting the temptation to give in to the powers and attractions of commercialism and instant gratification, are ways that we as individuals can support the whole church community, like guards on duty in the night.

 

Our watch need not be drudgery, however. The Advent themes of preparation and watchfulness are not intended to be penitential and dreary, but hopeful and joyful. The altar may look a little Lenten, but we haven’t banished the flowers; the wreath reminds us of growing light in the darkness, the hymns tell us of great things on the horizon.

 

So visit the big calendar downstairs, hang a little one at home and open the first tiny window; wind greens around your Advent wreath and light a candle; do whatever it takes to stay awake to the coming of God, each day, eventually on Christmas day, and on that final day when night is changed to day, for ever.

 

Stay awake: Do not simply wait for an act of God but BE an act of God, an incarnation however small, of his love and mercy to all humankind. For behold, we are all expecting a birth, within us, among us, and for us. “Let every heart prepare him room,” you might catch on the mall Muzak system, “and heaven and nature sing!”