Advent is here, with it’s themes of
watching and waiting, watching, waiting, and preparing, we are called to watch,
to watch and to wait, to be aware of the signs of the coming kingdom, to look
for its unveiling. But I wonder how many
of us are good at watching and watching and waiting, how many of us take the
time to read the signs? I suspect that it is all to easy to get bowled away by
the busyness that surrounds us, to bow to the demands of a world that seems to
live at an ever increasing pace, a world where watching and waiting has gone
largely out of fashion…
Lets face it we live in a world of the instant, of instant coffee, of e-mail, of internet shopping, of jet travel, of credit and more, a world where waiting is almost unnecessary! I wonder how many of us have become frustrated sitting in a traffic jam or waiting for a bus or train, we don’t want to wait, we want to get on with what we are doing….
And yet some of the best things come from waiting, waiting for that first ripe strawberry or tomato grown in your garden, resisting the temptation to pick it until it is perfectly ripe because you know the taste will outstrip anything grown in the supermarket.
Waiting for a baby to be born, a son or daughter a grandchild, niece or nephew, a child that mostly won’t be hurried into this world, a child whose arrival you will celebrate with great joy, a child who will be welcomed. All of the signs of the child’s arrival are apparent, just as the ripening fruit on the fig tree emerges and the farmer prepares for the harvest so the parents prepare for the arrival of the child…
Advent calls us to be aware of the God signs all around us, the signs of hope, of love, of joy and peace, of restoration and celebration, of wholeness and of healing and we need to begin to see them, to welcome them and to celebrate them as they appear in others and in ourselves. Advent calls us to the truth, that the kingdom of heaven is near, the day is coming when God will move among us making all things new.
I wonder if we grasp quite what that means, I wonder if we ever have our eyes unveiled enough to glimpse what Jesus was talking about, I wonder as we prepare for Christmas if we can grasp afresh the wonder that God came amongst us. God in Christ leaving the glories of heaven to be born in human flesh, God vulnerable and fragile; God accompanied by signs and miracles that only the shepherds and Magi saw…
And so God moves amongst us now, God the Holy Spirit bringing us to life with the wonder of love poured out upon us, in us and through us, and advent calls us to respond to the Spirits stirrings both within and around us, to open our eyes to see the signs of the kingdom breaking through…
To look for signs of the return of the Son of man who the gospel reading tells us will come on a cloud with power and great glory….
Jesus paints for us a terrible picture, of confusion and foreboding of the heavens being shaken, the parallel passage in Matthew speaks to us of wars and rumours of wars, wars, earthquakes, waves and signs in the sky it might be that we see all of these things on our TV screens every night, and often this is not fiction it is the daily news….
But Jesus does not tell us to quake and tremble with fear, no, he calls us to be strong, to stand tall, to hold our heads up high, for the kingdom of God is being revealed, and it is being revealed among us. It is revealed when we show love, love for God, love one for another, and love for the stranger. It is revealed in acts of mercy and kindness small and great, in acts of sacrifice as we choose to put others first, it is revealed as we trust in Jesus, receiving his strength, his power, his patience, his love, joy and peace.
Listen again to Paul’s prayer from 1 Thessalonians the passage we have just heard read;
…may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Advent calls us to pray and to watch, to watch and to wait for signs of the increase of the kingdom amongst us, and as his church that means that we must be those who live and act by the power of the Holy Spirit, that we become those signs as we lift our heads to receive his promises, and that might well mean being willing to take a stand for justice, being willing to give of ourselves for the sake of others…
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, remembering the God who became incarnate amongst us lets us also look for signs, lets us recognise and celebrate signs of the God who is incarnate within us by His Spirit, the God who calls us to live and to act according to his good purpose, the God who fills our lives with his colours and his flavours and makes his presence known through us.
Here is the miracle of the Christian message, that the God who came as a tiny babe at Christmas, is the God who was crucified, died and buried for our sake, and is also the God who was raised again triumphant on the third day. This God, this Jesus has promised the gift of the Spirit to all believers, and in the power of the Spirit we can lift our heads high no matter what our circumstances, no matter what national statistics might say, no matter what the news or sore condition of our hearts…
He calls us today to trust him, to look to him, to hope in him, he has made the way for us to do this through the gift of his son, the ultimate gift, given in love, by love, for we are loved fully and completely, so completely that he looks upon us as signs of his kingdom, sealed by the Spirit, holy and blameless, precious and honoured, redeemed and forgiven, inheritors of the kingdom to come ambassadors of grace…
This year then, as we prepare for Christmas let us be those who celebrate not only the God who came, but the God who is continually with us, the God who dwells within us and calls us to hear his voice, to follow him, to prepare the way for the kingdom of heaven IS near.
Picture; Blessed Ones by Tim
