Jeremiah 33:14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13,  Luke 21: 25-36

God comes to you, like the future, open

I love the season of Advent, I think because it is the equivalent of an ultimate ‘once upon a time’, the start of a story that has changed my life and in which I place my trust to find meaning.

We heard three readings, each full of promise, each looking to the future.

• Jeremiah prophesies that in the end, despite exiles and super-powers, God will restore a King of justice and righteousness for all God’s people.
• Paul writes to the Christians in Thessalonica, longing to see them face to face, urging them meanwhile to love each other and to love all.
• Luke remembers Jesus predicted the end of things has signs, to be alert and not give up to the worries of life.

But we are surrounded by other sorts of messages.  Cycling home last week, as if by magic, a wonderful Christmas Tree, on de Maisonneuve and Metcalf, and then downtown all the Christmas lights. 

Beyond the Church, Christmas comes without Advent, after goolish Halloween, with a Black Friday frenzied form of Thanksgiving.

This materialism or pseudo celebration,is not Advent, not as it was, nor as it is. 

I want to tell you about our canary.Jesus encourages me, because he took natural signs to teach about what lies behind everything.  It is the Jesus Green I am discovering.  Look at the fig tree and all the trees. Our canary, is called Chippie we brought him home this spring, singing furiously and then he had a moult. Canaries moult in a dramatic fashion from the tail to the head, over weeks, and they stop singing.  It was his first moult.  It’s a big physiological shock, draining effort and uncomfortable and unknown the first time.  The moultwent on and on. Two months, three, four, visit to the vet.  All well. But on it went, no singing, unhappy bird. Research; some birds never sing again.  Feathers still look odd; more waiting and worried, and yet; fewer feathers fell, Chippie was looking chippier, and gradually little songs, encouraged by canary videos and our other birds, so now he is singing, differently, tentatively compared to before, but singing. Listen:

It was Long, uncomfortable, uncertain with so much waiting, but now the joy, the not taking it for granted, the listening to how song changes as Chippie restores his confidence, and like human singers, grows to full voice.

This is more authentic Advent and makes me ask what about you, your waiting, uncertainty, discomfort and not knowing.

But then, the Christian experience is to trust a quality to this uncertainty, those themes Hope, Peace, Joy, Love. Today the Hope.

Advent has a tension, of hope and openness.

I watched a fascinating sci-fi movie. From 2002, Minority Report starring Tom Cruise.  It is set in the future when crimes have been almost all eradicated thanks to the capacity of three psychics or pre-cogs, to predict the future and connect them to computer systems the police analyse.  Cruise is the head of the police department who suddenly finds he himself is predicted to commit a murder and the drama is how he clears his name.  Can he change the predicted future.The film’s central theme is the question of free will versus determinism. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance.

Advent has challenging promises about the future,  as if it is set and known in advance.

This made me remember another film, Ground Hog Day, when the main character Phil has to relive the same day, Groundhog Day, in a loop that sends him to depression.  It would.  I found this line in the original script. Rita the woman he loves, is finally able to understand some of what he is living and asks what he thinks about his déjà, déjà vu.

PHIL “I’ll tell you what I do know. Even in a day as long as this, even in a lifetime of endless repetition, there’s still room for possibilities.”^[

The Christian Church has created this season of Advent, to acknowledge the preparation period for the birth of Jesus, and for the arrival of the whole realm of God, that Jesus has made known. It is a multi-layered period.  Not just birth time but all time.

How can we grasp that?

Frankly I find it overwhelming and complicated.  I can’t even follow Ground Hog day at times.

But what I do find is that important things are taught. Three things.

Advent is a human season, to enter into something God has done.  God has come to us in human form, in human history, in Jesus, and the promise each Advent is God comes to you.  This world, this time, this place is where God comes, to you.  It may not be a canary or a fig tree, but God comes to you.

It is not easy or comfortable.  Do not let yourself be fooled that good things are always comfortable or easy. The early church had to admit Jesus did not return in the lifetime of his first followers, imagine that challenge.  They lived through heartbreak and suffering.  But they did not give up.  , Advent is about growth towards fuller human beings come what may.

Advent is ceaseless, open, not determined, and your actions matter.  The future King of Israel rules in justice and righteousness, the disciples are urged to be alert, to pray to get through challenges, the church in Thessalonica should love each other and all.  Even with scientific understanding of the universe, rather than an ancient worldview, we know some things are beyond us, given and others never can be, they simply unfold: our actions still matter.

God comes to you, like the future, open.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be, more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four and each movement then,

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,

I find letters from God dropped in the street- and every one is signed by God’s name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will

    punctually come forever and ever.

So go out to meet God in new and surprising ways – She will come to you.

Do not expect this to be easy or even nice.

Trust your actions matter to God and are part of God’s realm, for Jesus has made it known.