The Rev. Robert Lundquist Advent IIIB 12/11/05 St Paul’s, Ft Collins

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…” Our collect for the day is rather clear and bold. It is a new heavens and a new earth that are being stirred up. We live in the world of Isaiah, in the old world, even as we are praying for the new. We pray for the world in which there is no weeping, no distress, no lives cut short.

As we heard last week, Isaiah was speaking to a people just freed from 150 years of bondage. The Jews had been enslaved by the Babylonians for generations, and set free by Cyrus the Persian. They are liberated by God for the new heavens and earth, set free from serving masters. No longer will they plant crops and build homes for their captors – they shall eat of the crops which they have sown and tended, they will enjoy the fruit of their own handiwork. And they shall no longer bear children for calamity.

We’re not there yet, are we? Children continue to be borne for calamity – my heart sinks each day when I open the paper and see the name “Aaroné.” Aaroné Thompson is the 6 year-old girl who is missing and presumed dead from her home in Aurora. Nearly every day The Denver Post publishes a section entitled Portraits of Valor, short biographies of US servicemen and women killed in Iraq. Four, five, six, seven pages long. All children borne for calamity.

But Isaiah is foretelling, is praying for a world of peace, a world in which enemies live together in harmony. Psalm 126 picks up the theme: “When God restored us, we were like dreamers.” And “Those who sowed with tears in their eyes will reap the harvest singing for joy.”

Today is Gaudate Sunday – “joy!” in Latin. In the midst of our Advent preparations we look forward with joy, trusting God to give us good gifts. This is also know as Rose Sunday, the day when we light to pink candle and on which the clergy don rose vestments. It is a glimpse into the future that is coming…

But we still have work to do. Author Anthony de Mello has written: “Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even if they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, the live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, and they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence…”

We’ve seen such a world on the movie screen not too long ago. The world of The Matrix is such a place, in which people live their total lives in an illusionary world while their bodies are kept comatose in pods. Only a few people actually wake up, opening their eyes to a grittier but unfettered existence. The choice is between a dream utopia and a real wakefulness. We hear echoes of John the Baptizer in these images…

Are you asleep? If so, “Wake Up!” Prepare the way! Pay attention – after all, you’re building a straight highway in the wilderness.

De Mello goes on to say that nearly all mystics, from all faiths and traditions, agree that all will be well. Christians look to the writing of Dame Julian of Norwich, who reminds us that all manner of things shall be well. When we get lost in the details, distracted by the minor things, we forget that God is in charge and that all will, in truth, be well. Even when everything around us seems a mess. “Tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep!”

The work of Advent is waking up. We can so easily be numbed by the hoopla, by the shopping and the crowds, by the talk of sales and the economy and of “Black Friday,” that day after Thanksgiving when merchants pray to earn a profit. And this year we are distracted and diminished by the fake debate over “Christmas vs Holiday.” Some Christians are boycotting businesses that say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” What a swamp of contradictions it all ends up being – Holiday is merely a contraction of “Holy Day.” It makes me sleepy just to talk about it!

H King Oehmig talks about the 3 R’s of Advent, and I think he’s on to something:

Returning: “Be still and know that I am God.” Make the time, take the time to know God. Several us gathered here yesterday for an Advent Quiet Day, reflecting on the people we meet along our Advent journey toward the Nativity – John the Baptizer, Joseph, and Mary the mother of Jesus. It’s not impossible to set aside a few minutes each day to seek God in a quiet time. Let go of the controlling, let go of the catching up – and be with God. Emily Dickenson put it this way: “Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”

Reverence: “There are only two ways to live,” said Albert Einstein, “as if nothing were a miracle, and as if everything were a miracle.” Advent is all about cultivating that sense of reverence. It’s about opening the eyes – about waking up – to all that is around us. Advent is about seeing others through God’s eyes rather than our own, and to see them as the priceless, unrepeatable gifts that they are.

Relationships: “If you begin to live life looking for God around you, every moment becomes a prayer,” said Frank Bianco. That’s really what the world needs now. So much is up for grabs, it seems – waking up to God in each other means that our prayers grow hands and feet, and that our lives are shaped anew by the values of stewardship, care and concern.

Author Frederick Buechner terms Advent the “invasion of holiness.” Invasion is not usually a positive word for most of us. But this invasion is not by extraterrestrials, it’s not a close encounter of the third kind, but it is an invasion of humanity by God. Bethlehem is the beachhead. “In the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord.”

Wake up! God is coming – don’t say you weren’t warned!

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.”

AMEN.

A Parish For All People!