Hope from the Ashes
Welcome to the First Sunday of Advent. The start of the church calendar, and a time when we begin the season of waiting for the birth of Christ.
This week, like perhaps many of you, after several weeks of planning – looking at COVID numbers – and evaluating my own level of exposure, myself and my family finally had to decide whether to be together for Thanksgiving, or not.
In the end, we did a combination of things including Zooming with my brother’s family, moving the meal itself to Friday so that my sister could join us after being tested, and keeping things as small as possible without travel and limited trips to the grocery store. Maybe it was the right way to do things, or maybe not, but after weeks of plans and numbers and exposure changing even in the last few days, like every family, we did the best we could.
They say each generation is marked by a significant moment in history. My grandparents can tell you exactly where they were the moment they heard that WWII was over. My parents recall being sent home from school the days Kennedy and King were shot. For me, it was the moment the plane struck the Twin Towers on 9/11. And for those born in the 20 years since, it will the experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic that defines their childhood.
My son was born the first week of March, 2020. Where I live, in Maryland, we went into total lockdown that same week. Last year, in an attempt at a cute pregnancy announcement, my husband and I sent around a picture of our ultrasound along with the caption, “Dear honeymoon, your time is up! – coming March 2020” – little did we know how prophetic those words would turn out to be.
In some ways, the time since March, could be categorized as one long extended season of Advent – since the pandemic hit the US, those of us who have been working remotely have done little but wait. Wait for the curve to flatten, wait for schools to reopen, wait for a vaccine to become available – wait for life to return to some semblance of “normal.”
And while previously, we may have thought of waiting as “doing nothing,” we know now that this could not be further from the truth. No one who has lived through this year will ever again think of “waiting” as easy. Staying home, wearing masks, keeping distant, and quarantining for a safe period of time, have become the newest – and perhaps most unexpected – act of love this holiday season. Waiting is now a form of activism.
The Gospel of Mark also instills a sense of urgency and action in the language of waiting for the Messiah. “Keep alert” we are told, “for you do not know when the time will come” (Mark 13:33). Rather than a scolding or warning, I believe that this message, which heralds the pending arrival of the Messiah, comes from a place of Hope.
In the nearly 9 months since the start of the pandemic, we may be tempted to let down our guard, “fall asleep” to the diligence we are taking to protect ourselves and others, and given how long we have already waiting this year, this would be understandable.
However, we know that the season of Christmas does not start the day after Thanksgiving – rather this is the season of Advent – the season of waiting itself.
This is 2020’s moment!
This chapter in Mark, comes as a kind of apex. A point in between the stories of the teachings of Jesus, and the Passion narrative to follow. It is sometimes known as the “little apocalypse,” because of its messianic language. At the beginning of this chapter, we hear Jesus predict the destruction of the Temple, which occurred in 70 CE, around the time this Gospel was written.
The scriptures that we refer to as the Old Testament, recount the stories and laws of what is known as Second Temple Judaism, written between the time of the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and subsequent exile, and the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans. The Temple was so foundational to the practice of the Jewish tradition at the time, that in many ways, Judaism could not exist in its same form with out it and the religion itself transformed as a result. It is no accident then, that the Christian sect arose out of these ashes.
Although Jesus was thought to have died between 30 and 36 of the Common Era, his story did not begin to be written down until after the second Temple fell and was perhaps a direct consequence of the desire from the community to build something new.
As the scriptures say, “But 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… So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.” (Mark 13:24-25, 29).
With each passing week of this pandemic, I have come to understand a new meaning in this apocalyptic message. Much like today, with the destruction of the second Temple, the Israelites are already in a constant state of fear and anxiety. The commandments they have been taught to follow, and the culture they have fought to maintain for generations, have suddenly changed. The prophecy does not increase their anxiety, but rather acknowledges it.
And so, it is in this moment, the Evangelist seizes on the story of Jesus and begins to spread the message of the Gospel – the message of Hope. Jesus, the person, had come and gone, but in this moment, the people were waiting for a Savior, and the power of Jesus’ message was ready to be received.
In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert describes the creative process as a time of waiting. She speaks of ideas as having agency, a kind of mind of their own – they float around in our collective consciousness until they find a place to land.
A person, no matter how creative, or not, they may think themselves to be, simply by being open to creative ideas, can be struck by inspiration at any time. “Inspiration” being an idea trying to take root. And once struck, we can either choose to express that idea through creativity – be it song or dance, writing or poetry, ice skating or cooking – or we can let it go, allowing it to land with someone else.
In this way, we do not have ownership of the idea itself – in other words, we didn’t “come up with it” – only its expression. If we do not act on inspiration as it comes to us, that idea is free to go meet someone else who will, and it is our responsibility to let it. However, if we cultivate time for creativity and we allow ourselves to enter into a time of waiting – or even rest, this Sabbath time can be an opportunity to inform the creative Spirit that we are open to receive.
In the mystical realms, we dance in the hope of inspiration. When we actively pause and pay attention to the Spirit moving in the world around us – we invite a level of creativity never before manifested in conscious form.
So, on this First Sunday of Advent, I offer you this idea: if the destruction of the Temple, an act so Earth-shattering to the people who depended on it for their identity, could spark the creation of the Gospel stories, and the message of Jesus as we know it today, think of the possibilities ripe for the taking in the current present moment of pause, reflection, and anticipation.
All we have to do, is wait.
Let us pray…
O God may we rest in the hope of possibilities, in the knowledge of your love, and in the inspiration of your Holy Spirit. Give us patience in this current season to wait for your coming in Glory.
Amen.
