Knitting in Advent

I have started knitting again.

I haven't been knitting that much, since moving to Texas last year.  For one thing, I felt overwhelmed at first.  For another thing, people kept telling me that I would never need those warm socks and footies that I loved knitting.  And when it's 100 degrees out, and it plummets to about 85 at night -- well, it just doesn't seem like knitting weather.

But, the temperature has been dipping down a little lower lately.  Also, it is Advent now, just barely.  So I got out my trusty knitting needles and threw caution to the wind.  I started knitting a pair of footies.

It is not a bad way to spend Advent.

One of the first words we hear in Advent is "Wait."  Wait, because it is God who is coming to us, and not the other way around.  And we can pray for God to come quickly (and sometimes we even do), but there is not one thing we can do to MAKE God come.  This one is on God.  Salvation is on God, not us.

I don't know about you, but waiting drives me crazy.  And that waiting when it is clear that what you are waiting for is on the other person -- that drives me the craziest.  Waiting in the doctor's office, so that the doctor can tell me what is wrong and how to fix it, and then give the right medicine -- waiting for the electrician to come and re-wire the basement -- waiting for the plumber to come and fix the leak -- that is the hardest thing.

So I think that waiting in Advent may be in part to remind us about the things that we can do, and the things we can't do.  As it turns out, only God can save us.  Only God can heal what is ultimately wrong.   Only God can bring the kind of light we need, and place that light within our hearts.  Only God can bring the living water, so that we will never be thirsty.  Only God can knit our hearts back together, only God can knit us together with him, so that we are joined unbreakably to love and to life   and to hope and to peace.

Only God can do it.  And he has.  And he does.  And he will, again.

But in the meantime, we wait.  But while we wait, we are reminded that there are things we can do.  They won't make Jesus come more quickly.  But they are things that testify to our hope.

So many of us light the candles.  One a week.  And as the light of the candle grows, we remember that he is coming to us, he is coming to us -- that he walks among us, inhabits our world, our lives, and even our bodies.  Our hands.

So we light the candles.  There are so many ways to light the candles:  by giving away bread, by sharing a cup of water, by holding the hands of the dying, by standing up for the vulnerable, by welcoming the stranger.

As for me, today I will knit.  And I will consider the one who, by his grace, inhabits even my hands, even our hands, and who has knit us all together by his love.

Luke in "the meantime"

When you are reading Luke 21, and especially when you are reading it with a small Bible study group over lunch, it's hard to avoid the subject of the "second coming."  And it's even harder to avoid the question, "Is this it?  Is this the time?"  There are people (again) who are noticing the weather calamities, the political turmoils, all the signs that make us wonder whether it's time to quit your job and sit on your rooftop, or at least, get in the habit of praying more and going to worship more.

"Is this the time?  And if it is, what is the appropriate response?"

Those are the sorts of questions we dealt with yesterday at our lunch Bible study.  Or at least, those are the questions we started with.  And we came up with all of the usual discussion points too:  the points that there have been many times, in the last two millennia, that people have been sure that This Was It.  And so far, they have been wrong.  The points that Jesus also wants people to know, at other junctures in the Scripture, that no one really knows when he is coming back, so let's not start the count-down too early.

Then there is that verse that sticks out like a sore thumb:  "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place."  What could Jesus possibly mean by this?  One person offered the possibility that perhaps the word "generation" meant something different in those days.  Unfortunately, the word "generation" meant then what it means now.  And several generations have come and gone, and "the second coming" has not happened.

So, what does this mean?

I offered the opinion that this scripture was written about the end of the world, but not just about the "end of the world".  This scripture was written about 'the second coming', but not just about the second coming.  It was written both for the end time and for the 'meantime', which is where we are all now.  And the exhortations are for us, whether we are living in the end times, or not.

I couldn't help noticing the juxtaposition of the big and cosmic signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, with the small and ordinary signs of the blossoming of the fig trees.  Jesus is warning his disciples to 'stay alert' to the small things, in the midst of all of the big things that are happening.  It's easy to focus on the big blasts of history and miss the signs of God's grace and unending love that are around us.

Who are these warnings written for?  someone asked at the Bible study on Wednesday.  I thought it was a very good question.  We might think that the warnings are for the doubters and the unbelievers, but they aren't.  The warnings and the exhortations are for us.  They are to remind us that to hold fast to God's promises even when the signs of the times are against us, even (and especially) when the darkness descends.  These verses from Luke aren't all that different from Paul's in Romans 8:  "Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  not life or death.  Not sun or moon or stars.  Not wars or rumors of wars.

Hold fast to God's promises.  Hold fast to the cross.  Hold fast to the love of God in Christ.  And live a life worthy of those promises:  a life that values the vulnerable and honors the poor.  Hold fast to God's promises.

Perhaps this is a message as much for the 'meantime' as it is for the end times, because the meantime can be pretty mean sometimes.

It's the Week Before Advent

....I keep reminding myself, because it seems like such good news.

This means that Advent services start next week, not this week.  I have a few more days to iron out the details in our theme, to find songs prayers that match, and to make sure everyone knows their role.  It also means that I have a few more days to get my Sunday Advent schedule organized:  I'm preaching on the first and third Sundays in Advent, and I have time to make preaching folders and study ahead and fill those folders with ideas.  Theoretically, at least.

It means that I have a whole week to find that Advent Wreath that I bought a few years ago, but never put up on the dining room table, because Advent sneaks up on me right after Thanksgiving, and I'm not ready.

Perhaps this year we'll really observe a regular advent discipline in our home, like I've always wanted to.  Perhaps every night I'll light a candle and say a prayer during advent, the way I've always wanted to.  Perhaps every night I'll open a window on an Advent Calendar, and everything will go According to Plan.   Instead, our Advent observance has always been sort of haphazard and random, mixed in with some craft-making and shopping and (truth be told) Very Little Baking.

I am all for meaningful Advent traditions and rituals.  But Advent (and Christmas) always sort of sneaks up on me, even though I know it's out there, and I'm waiting for it, and anticipating it with both joy and fear, fear and joy.

I have this recurring dream that it's Christmas eve, and the tree is lit up and the house is arranged, and the dinner is ready (by some miracle), but I am not ready.  I have not bought some of my presents yet, and I have run out of time.  All of the stores are closed, and the feast has begun, and I am empty-handed.  I wake up (sort of) relieved, and with a new sense of urgency.  How many days left?  I wonder.

Advent themes are repentance and hope, waiting and getting ready.  The one word theme of Advent is "Come."  "Come Lord Jesus," and we are getting ready, we think.  We're decking the halls and making the feast and wrapping the presents (although some of us are better at these preparations than others).  Others of us are repenting all the time, every time we forget to light an Advent Candle, or make some small (or large) mistake, or take a wrong turn.

So it's a week before Advent, and maybe I'll really find that Advent Wreath this year, and I hope I do.  But the One we are waiting for, the One who is coming doesn't depend on my candle-lighting or my prayers.  He's coming for those who can't light the candle, who are too weak to pray.  He's coming for all of the ones who have lost their way, who have fallen and can't get up, who have died and need to be raised to new life.

He is coming to save us.

Whether I light the candle or not.

He's coming.

And he's here.

I Am So Over John the Baptist

So I am going to preach on 2nd Peter, instead.  You know, "we await a new heaven and a new earth"?  Waiting.  I get that. 

Where does this John the Baptist come from anyway?  I end up preaching John the Baptist every year, because if you're in a lectionary tradition, like I am, he just shows up.  On the 2nd Sunday of Advent.  (And on the third Sunday, too, usually.)  And even to people who are used to John the Baptist, because they've been coming to church for YEARS, I still feel like I have to explain, a little.  Because if you are anywhere else than in church, he seems a little out of place.  Even in some churches, he seems a little out of place, actually.

I was in a different church last weekend, where it was the 1st Sunday in Advent, and they were introducing their advent theme, during which John the Baptist would not make an appearance.  The theme for the four weeks of Advent would be the Beatitudes, and the main characters would be the Usual Suspects:  Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, the Wise Men.   This makes sense.  These are the people we are expecting, waiting for.  Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds and the Wise Men fill the story of Christmas.  I'm sure there is plenty to learn from them, as well.

But for me, John the Baptist just bursts in, sort of rudely, without even giving me time to pick up the mess in my house.  There's not a spot for the Christmas tree yet, though I know where it will go.  John the Baptist bursts in, even more abruptly than usual, because this year we have Mark's version of the story, where there is no Christmas story, and Jesus and John the Baptist both seem to come out of nowhere.

They are adults already, with no hint of where they came from, or what special credentials they have.  They are just here, with words from God on their lips, if we have a mind to listen.  And one of the things they remind us of is that Christmas is just the prologue, just the beginning of the story.  God being a baby is just glimpse of what is to come.  Maybe we want to hang out with the baby Jesus for a long time, maybe we want to make Christmas the whole show, but it's just the beginning, just the beginning of the gospel, just the beginning of what God will do.

Already, on the 2nd Sunday in Advent, we have this weird guy wearing weird clothes and eating weird food, saying, "Prepare the Way of the Lord," and it's a grown man who will come and be baptized.  And people are coming, flocking out to the wilderness to hear him, because they know that their lives aren't just all sunshine and light the way they are, and they want something to change, they want something to be different.  So, they're ready for a weird guy wearing weird clothes.

Yet -- can I say?  Like us, they have no idea.  They may want change, but they don't really know what kind of change they want.  Some of them want to go back to the old days, when David was King and everything was good.  Some of them just want to get Rome off their backs.  Some of them want a little less poverty, a little more peace. 

While we are waiting, we're waiting for a baby.  But he will grow up fast.  John the Baptist reminds us that Christmas is not the end point, just the beginning.  John the Baptist reminds us that some things have been fulfilled, but that there are some things we are still waiting for.  We are waiting for peace in our hearts, and peace in our world.  We are waiting for the new heavens and the new earth.  We are waiting for the dead to rise.  We are waiting for bread.  Some things have been fulfilled, and for some things we still wait.

And you know, though this waiting is hard (all waiting is hard), it is good, I think.  I don't know if this is exactly what Peter has in mind, but one reason I think the waiting is good is because we think we know what is coming, and really, we have no idea.  The future will not be like the past, and the good old days will not return, because God is doing a new thing.  God is doing a new thing in the world, and God is doing a new thing in us. 

And God is saying, "It will not be what you expect.  But it will be good.  Trust me.  Be patient with me.  Because after all, I am being patient with you."