What Are We Waiting For?

Not many of my lessons at secondary school stick in my mind but one does... We were waiting for a Maths lesson to begin and our teacher was running seriously late. It’s fair to say we were being a little ‘boisterous’ to say the least and certainly not waiting well with our books out, pens at the ready.  Instead the class ‘Joker’ was up to all sorts of no good at the front of the class - which was hugely entertaining at the time.

In the midst of the mayhem that our class room was becoming, in came one of the English teachers who was teaching in a nearby classroom. He had a reputation of having a formidable temper. Purple with rage with thin pursed lips he burst into the room and yelled above the noise, ‘What are you waiting for?’

The collective nature of our activity and noise merged us as if into one being - a creature oozing the hormone-laden scent of deodorant and bravado - and we responded as with one voice, “CHRISTMAS!” This earned us collective laughter and a detention, but the question remains - what are we waiting for as 2012 draws to a conclusion?

Many are waiting for a better time when jobs and income will be more secure. Many are waiting for war in far-away lands to end so that loved ones can return. Many are waiting for the arrival of a baby or someone they love to get well or to die peacefully. Many are waiting to win the lottery. Many are waiting for nations and Governments to act on a plethora of international issues like working to prevent the impact of Climate Change or Peak Oil or poverty in developing nations.  Many are waiting for things in some unnamed general sense to be better, like they were before. Many are waiting. Many are waiting...

Even as we stand in the queue at the Post Office waiting is not a passive thing - we wonder when it’s our turn, we look at the posters around us, we plan our day, what we will eat, how we will make that awkward phone-call....

But waiting is an active thing.  The same is true of the season of Advent. It is the time that the Church sets aside to wait actively and attentively for the God who promises for generations in the story of what we call the Old Testament in the Bible, to come among us in person. He comes to right wrongs, to restore justice, and to renew our relationships with each other and with Him.  It sounds good doesn’t it and it buys right into the hopes and longings of many of us right at the moment.

But as December rolls on and our hopes are raised and our longings met we discover that God Almighty is delayed in coming in person and He sends a baby instead.

All too often this baby is portrayed in many a Christmas card scene as ‘little Jesus meek and mild’ and yet we forget at our peril, that this baby, this Jesus comes to fulfil God’s hopes...  and ours. This Jesus - healer of the broken, crosser of barriers, welcomer of the outsider, forgiver of willfulness, lover of the loveless, table turner, water walker, crucified, dead, buried... and raised...

As we wait for things to get better. As 2012 rolls into 2013. Why not gives this Jesus a chance to fulfil your hopes and dreams... Meek and mild, as if...

Advent day 18 - Creator

You will need your smart phone - enabled with the Aurasma app - for this meditation on Freedom from the Traces of Advent team...

Advent Podcast

Advent day 16 - Lighten our darkness...

Do you ever have a really deep seated sense of longing? A yearning, almost an aching? Something tangible, physical.  For some of us it might be for someone we love when we are apart from them. For some of us it might be for a particular place or landscape. For others of us still it might be for a time in the future when things will be different, better, fairer, freer, more just. That sense of just not being complete unless we are there in that place, in that time with that person.

This is the sound that Advent should ring long and deep within our hearts; that insistent tolling, reminding us that with God, the best is yet to come. Things can only get better - and no not in a glib, political, well advertised, slick sort of a way, but one where the fabric of our world is transformed by God and the topography of our innermost souls is transfigured. Change is coming.

The royal purple cloak of Advent, symbolising the coming of God as King and our need of Him because of our brokenness is lightened by the bright beams of hope especially today - hence the pink - rejoice, celebrate, be happy, the change you long and yearn for is coming!

This is the message of John the Baptist to us. But John is significant, not because of what he is, but because of what he’s not.

What is important about John is not his political or religious significance but rather his lack of significance. What is denied about John is extraordinary: he was not the light, he is not the Christ, he is not Elijah, he is not the prophet, he is untrustworthy to untie the sandal of the one coming after him, whilst he baptises with water the one coming after him will baptise with the Holy Spirit, he is not the bridegroom, he must increase so I can decrease. The subordination of John to Jesus shows how important it is that we get their relationship straight. John’s significance is gained only by being one chosen and sent by God to point toward the the One who would bring in God’s long yearned for change.

The other thing we know about John is that he is a witness and gives testimony. This is language of the law court, and in Advent, a trial is underway.  But it is not Jesus who is on trial but us, our world, it’s leaders, our drives and motives, our lives and lifestyles, our choices. As God comes amongst us, returning as a longed for lover, are we still the people He fell in love with at the first moment of Creation?

Did you see the moon on Friday night? Round beautiful and full. It was one of those rare occasions where it feels so close that you could almost reach out and grab it. In areas without too much light polution, the effect was apparently quite stunning – and the amazing thing about the moon, of course, is that of itself it has no light at all.  The moon shines only with the reflected light of the sun.

And here John the Baptist stands as the moon, to the sun that is Jesus.  He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness to that light.  Like Friday’s moon, he shone more brightly that those who had gone before him, but he was not that light.  He bore witness because he too shone with reflected glory….and he was in no doubt that his role in the gospel was not centre stage. In the account we have just heard, John is not called "the Baptist". The emphasis is on his witness.  His calling was to be a sign, pointing the way to Jesus.

Jesus’ coming demands a decision on our part. His signs are too powerful to ignore. He is either at least a prophet or a false prophet who must die. He claims authority which is Gods, and therefore is either a blasphemer and deserves death - or he speaks the truth.

The moon’s light comes from the sun. Similarly John refers us still to Jesus. Like the sun, light, Jesus, shines, and is either welcome as it shows goodness and Godness in our lives; or it is unwelcome as it exposes things in our lives and reveals us as we really are.

John is a witness to the truth of all that God is doing in and through Jesus. We need to decide for ourselves who He is. As we stand on the cusp of a soft focus crib scene - who will this baby grow to be? C.S Lewis put it well...

‘...I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to...’

John’s testimony to who Jesus is, challenges us still to react - who is he? The intrusion of Light into the world will not leave things as they are - we must decide. Our decision puts everything at stake...

Advent Day 11

He was a young man, caught in the web of drug addiction. She was the pharmacist who with genuine love and care dispensed the daily dose of Methadone to people yearning to break free from the effects of drugs. He shared with her his desire to re-order his life, to become free of the paralysing effects of addiction. His spoke of his hope for a new beginning. Suddenly he stopped coming. She wondered about him. Where was he? She watched and waited but he never returned.

Years passed. One day her son invited a friend home for an evening meal. When she opened the door, standing before her was the young man of earlier years. Healthy and well, he now worked as a social worker with others caught in the grip of addiction. He shared how her words, like an arrow, had struck his heart, opening him to reform, freedom and hope.

John the Baptist, the arrow in God’s quiver, waited in the wilderness. At the appointed time he was sprung forth from God’s bow. John pointed a people who lived in dread and uncertainty to a greater power and a greater love revealed in the person of Jesus.

Can you find yourself among the many people who went out to meet and welcome John’s message? What might John say to you?

In what way this week might you become the arrow in God’s hand, the messenger calling people to hope and love and to the reform of social injustices?

Taken from the marvellous and inspiring Sacred Space site

Advent day 10: The Word as as Wordle

Here is the word cloud I made of this Sunday's Gospel read ing which you can read by clicking here

Advent day 9: Bethlehemian Rhapsody

This is doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter and I thought I would share it here... Enjoy!