Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down!
So, here we are at the beginning of the church year, and I always love that line from Isaiah. It’s so fitting. And fits right in with today’s Gospel reading. Both are loud and ponderous, filled with omens and warnings.
Our first reading from Mark seems to begin at the ending. It's known as the Little Apocalypse, and it's about as far away from a quiet little manger story as we can get.
I mean, here we are, clearly in the holiday season, and we can't help but feel that should be getting stories about God wanting to share with us; about Mary and her sister, Elizabeth; about Joseph and Mary being visited by angels; all those gentle, joyous signs of great things to come; all that pondering of signs in the heart.
We should be sitting around our trees (I know, some of us already have them up), listening to Bing Crosby and sipping nog and cider.
We should be imagining and planning and shopping...or at hearing ads in the background. And looking forward with gladness.
But then this: Boom! "In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
I mean, the world is ending here, and we've hardly begun thinking about the birth. We're just settling in to watch Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, and here we are, left picking up the pieces of doom and disaster.
Advent is just one weird season. We want to run to the joyous birth, but we are stuck here, out of the Christmas storyline. Talking about doom and wondering why we even celebrate to begin with.
The other day, I was at the Catos' house up in Hamilton, hanging out with Cotton the dog. I was doing some online shopping, when I surfed over to a couple of news sites. Story after story started scrolling across the screen. Scandals, disasters, wars in the Middle East, nuclear threats, crimes, tragedies.
“That's just awful,” I thought. “Can't we even get a day off?”
I just sat there and thought if ever there was a time to raise my fists to the sky and shout, “Oh that you would tear open the heavens and come down!!!” then this is it.
It was like I was looking at a Little Apocalypse, and I wondered what in the world can we do? How can we act? What pressure do we put on which people? When will it all end? The mountains need to quake; the waters need to boil; the nations need to tremble at God's presence.
I was muttering that it's high time that God, God with a big white beard and fiery eyes and Charlton Heston hair, and lightning bolts and a smiting stick comes stomping down from the sky, thundering, “What is wrong with you people!!!”
I looked to the Cotton the Dog for confirmation, but he had moved to a window, taking advantage of a rare sunbeam, and watching cats and squirrels outside. He was vigilant. And I smiled at him, got up and patted his head, and went back to my shopping.
***
The dog may have it right. The dog may know more about the Gospel than I do. All those things Jesus warns about have been going on since before I was born. And more importantly, they've been going on since before Jesus was born. All this strife and turmoil simply points to the never-ending need for God in our lives.
The real point of this Gospel passage is that all of this indicates that, amid all this weird life, the Son of Man is near. And we only have one job in Jesus' teaching here: Keep awake, and watch.
Like Cotton the Dog, keep be vigilant. And when we stop spinning our wheels and knocking our heads against things we CAN'T solve out there in the world, we can begin to see those Little Apocalypses around us that we can do something about.
Someone we know loses a job. Someone we know is assaulted. Someone we know loses a child. A home burns here; a car crashes there. An argument; a fight; a funeral. Communities live in fear; factories close in sadness.
And our job…our only job....is to Keep awake, and watch, and sit with others and comfort them and love them.
Keep awake and watch... and pray for justice in our own communities.
Keep awake and watch... and offer hope to those who are hopeless.
Keep awake and watch... and offer help to those who are helpless.
Keep awake, and watch. And wait for God's purpose to unfold. And, at some deep level, we know...we know that things in the world will always have risks but that God will always be good. And it’s how we react to the risks that determines how we let God’s goodness break through.
And that's how we need to enter this season, and this new year, in a season of yearning for that which is almost too good to be true: a new expression of God's intention to save a world gone wrong.
So we keep awake, and we watch.
I ran across a poem by Jan Richardson. It is called “A Blessing When the World is Ending.” It goes this way:
Look, the world
is always ending
somewhere.
Somewhere
the sun has come
crashing down.
Somewhere
it has gone
completely dark.
Somewhere
it has ended
with the gun
the knife
the fist.
Somewhere
it has ended
with the slammed door
the shattered hope.
Somewhere
it has ended
with the utter quiet
that follows the news
from the phone
the television
the hospital room.
Somewhere
it has ended
with a tenderness
that will break
your heart.
But, listen,
this blessing means
to be anything
but morose.
It has not come
to cause despair.
It is simply here
because there is nothing
a blessing
is better suited for
than an ending,
nothing that cries out more
for a blessing
than when a world
is falling apart.
This blessing
will not fix you
will not mend you
will not give you
false comfort;
it will not talk to you
about one door opening
when another one closes.
It will simply
sit itself beside you
and gently turn your face
toward the direction
from which the light
will come,
gathering itself
about you
as the world begins
again.
So, keep awake and watch. Something good is happening this Advent. Because that small light? Maybe you notice it when you stand outside at night. That light way out there? That light just now beginning to gather about us? Well, we'll just have to keep awake awhile longer and watch...won't we?
Amen.