The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

First Sunday of Advent–C–2009

God of love and mercy, increase our strength of will to continue in the process of growth and change you have called us to trust in and surrender to. Help us to discover joy in this process of transformation despite all we may encounter on this journey. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

This first Sunday in Advent our Gospel lesson is about Jesus telling his disciples what they should expect and be waiting for in the future. What He was telling them was a far cry from expecting and waiting for a sweet little baby to be born. Jesus was describing chaotic, traumatic things that his disciples should expect and prepare for and that would be occurring in the near future. I wonder, do we experience chaos less than these first disciples? Maybe in this part of the world we don't have to endure constant occupying forces in our midst like they did.

In this country we don't have to endure the threat of constant violence like other parts of the world that we hear about on the news everyday; places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But we are not totally immune to chaos in our lives. We've known the collapse of the World Trade Center. We've known the devastation of Katrina and Rita. We've known earthquakes, and fires that destroy homes and lives. We've just been shocked by the shootings at Ft. Hood. Chaos is a part of every life! It's going to happen to everyone at one time or another. And it's not appropriate to compare the amount of chaos people suffer?Victor Frankle, the Jewish psychiatrist who survived a German concentration camp and experienced the death of all of his family, said, "You can't compare pain. Pain is like gas; a whole lot fills up a room; a little fills up a room."

So, Jesus was describing very painful stuff that was going to happen, and in fact it did happen. Those first disciples saw the destruction of the Temple, and they experienced the Roman army devastating Jerusalem. They experienced everything Jesus described. I'm sure you have heard the phrase, "God doesn't give us more than we can handle."I don't like that statement. I think that leads us to a real misunderstanding of who God is, how God acts in the world, and what God wants for us. It certainly doesn't bring to mind a merciful or loving savior.

Largely I believe that a lot of the suffering and pain that comes from the chaos in our lives is just the natural consequences of a fallen world. But it is probably even more complicated than that. Why chaos happens is not something we can entirely understand. The best theologians and philosophers throughout time have thought a lot about it, and still cannot give a satisfactory answer to the question, why? And I think sometimes we definitely do get more than we can handle, but I don't think it is God who is the source of chaos in our lives. I do not believe God causes chaos; God comes through the chaos to save. God brings light out of darkness. That is what the waiting in Advent is all about.

During Advent we prepare to celebrate Jesus being born during the darkest time of the year. It was a dark time in the history of Israel. They waited, as we wait, during times of chaos, for a Savior to bring light out of the darkness, to bring healing and new life to this suffering world.

God has always desired and promised to save us from our chaos. Advent is the beginning of the church year when we prepare for the coming, in flesh and blood, of this Saving God into the world. That is what Christmas is all about. How do we prepare for Christmas? Do we prepare to stand before the Son of Man? Do we prepare for Christmas with the understanding that we need a Savior?

Maybe we don't believe we need a Savior until we are faced with the chaotic in our lives. At times it is so easy to become very complacent and self-satisfied, and during those times it's hard to even consider that we need the saving help of God. Often it is only when the chaotic comes into our lives and turns everything upside down that we then realize we need to be saved. Fr. Richard Rohr had this to say in one of his recent daily meditations: "It is somewhat disconcerting to modern self-made people that they should need "salvation" at all.

We have all been trained in doing it ourselves, and many of us succeeded pretty well. So why change the pattern? Is it just "fire-insurance"? Just in case? Life will normally lead you to some situation or relationship that you cannot fix, control, change, like, or even understand. Sorry, but that is the rather universal pattern. Only when you are led to the edge of your own successes and resources, will you change and start drawing from Another and Larger Source. God is always there in place, ready to be drawn upon, and apparently willing to wait until we want the Big Love badly enough. God does not ask us for success, even moral success, which often merely inflates our own self-importance. God asks instead for our surrender, which is finally a win/win game because we both get all the love we need! And therein lies our salvation."

This first Sunday of Advent, the New Years Day for Christians, invites us to enter into a deep reflection concerning our need for God and also a deeper trust that God will supply that need. But Advent present us with a paradox, because we come to know of our overwhelming need for God most profoundly through those events in our lives that make us cry out in desperation, "Where are you God? "Why have you not answered my prayer"?

The paradox is, our faith becomes stronger and our trust deepens in those times when God doesn't answer right away, and when we have to wait for His answer. That is why Jesus warned His disciples to pray for strength, and to remain strong and faithful. Advent is about learning and exercising the spiritual discipline of perseverance; perseverance in preparing and waiting for God, because God's timing is not according to our dictates. Persevering in prayer and waiting for God to answer is an act of trust, but it also strengthens our faith, because faith in God means to trust in him, even in the darkness.

We have to come to the point where we realize we are not the ones in control. We have to come to the point where we surrender to the Creator of the Universe. When we are willing to surrender to God, we then will become open to the way God is responding to our needs. Advent challenges us to be awake and become aware of God's way of acting in our lives that we may have been blind to. Our ability to discern God's action in our lives needs to be developed. In order for this to happen we must surrender our own preconceived ideas about how God should respond to the situations in our lives. Richard Rohr said this about people who have faith: "I can only describe faith in its effects: people of real faith seem able to hold increasing amounts of chaos in one tranquil and ordered life. Faith seems to make people spacious, non-controlling, and waiting in awareness. The faith that Jesus praises as salvation (and sufficient in lepers, Samaritans, and those outside the temple system) is something very different than religion as such.

It is a capacity within people to contain and receive all things, to hold onto nothing, with almost no need to fear or judge rashly.

Faith-people find it unnecessary to secure themselves because they are secure at a deeper level; there is room for Another in that spacious place." God, in His mercy, gives us the time and the opportunity to learn to surrender to His transforming actions in our hearts. We are given the time to develop Kingdom hearts. And as we wait during this time of Advent, maybe we will come to realize it is God who waits first. It is God who has waited the longest. It is God who has never stopped, nor will ever stop waiting. Amen.