First Sunday of Adventure

Nov. 27th, 2009 1st Sunday in Advent

Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36

Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

I love words and I love to look up their meanings, their origins and their synonyms. Here’s what I found for Advent:
“Arrival, appearance, emergence, materialization, occurrence, dawn, birth, rise, development, approach, coming.” Advent originates from the Latin ‘adventus (arrival) and ‘advenire’ (to come). Incidentally, these are the very same roots of the word ‘Adventure’. Well, well…

‘Adventure’ is not often a word you often hear in the same sentence with the phrase ‘spiritual life’. As you read the above list of synonyms for Advent, you were no doubt applying each of those words to Jesus and his coming, perhaps especially to his first coming which we celebrate at Christmas. I especially love the words “emergence, dawn, birth and rise”. They are words filled with such an immense promise of something startlingly new, something never seen before, something that, in the case of Jesus’ first coming, rocked the people off their staid and stale foundations and made them either leap in joy and freedom or turn away in anger and fear or hesitate in anxious uncertainty, unsure if such beauty was meant for them. They are words of adventure and daring. They have serious consequences. They are very spiritual words.

It’s not all that hard to use those words in the context of Jesus and his amazing birth, his incredible life, his heart wrenching death and universally explosive resurrection. But would you ever use any of those words in the context of your everyday spiritual life? Emergence? Dawn? Birth? Materialization? Advent challenges you to not only acknowledge that Jesus came for the world and will come again for the world, but also that he came for you, comes for you and will come again for you – and that’s just in the next 5 minutes. Jesus never stops coming. Ever. His whole nature and his eternal desire is to come to us, but…

We just stop expecting him. We stop waiting for adventure.

We stop waiting in anticipation because, admit it, we feel we have been disappointed so often. We have so many preconceived ideas of what it will look like and what we should feel like when he comes that we become spiritually disheartened when our expectations and desires are not met. We pray for something and the answer doesn’t seem to come. We try to place ourselves in his presence but it feels like a failed experiment. Then we start to feel guilty because we don’t spend enough time in concentrated prayer and maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem to come. Days, weeks and months go by and prayer feels dry and unproductive – adventure is the last word we’d use to describe our spiritual life.

I’ll bet every one of you, without spending much time in deep thought, could easily identify something you are waiting for. Perhaps you’re waiting for healing, healing for a relationship or a physical healing. Maybe you’re waiting for change: a change in your life circumstances or a change in your ability to deal with certain people and situations. You may be waiting for a spiritual breakthrough or you could be waiting for guidance and direction for a tough decision. We are all waiting for something and waiting is very difficult. What we don’t often realize is that waiting is a vital, beautiful and deeply spiritual activity. Waiting is prayer. Waiting is adventure.

The reason we don’t recognize waiting as something valid and valuable in the spiritual life is because we are too influenced by the world’s perception of value. There is no doubt that ‘doing and accomplishing’ are essential to surviving in the world but when ‘doing and accomplishing’ are applied too liberally to our spiritual life, we are apt to get the horse before the cart. It becomes very difficult for us to remember that God is in control and that God is the beginning and the end; he is the creator and we are the created. When we realize that we have no control over God and his plans for our lives and that our goodness or lack of goodness is not what motivates God to come to us, all that’s left to do is wait. Waiting is the adventure. It means letting go and engaging in life without knowing what the next moment is going to hold. It means convincing ourselves that we cannot wrangle and manipulate and control things so that something we think is good and right will happen. It means being creatures in front of the one and only Creator. It means being poor and spiritual poverty is something that is difficult to comprehend in a world that pushes us to do, accomplish, attain, possess and control.

In scripture, there are 4 Hebrew words that translate as “wait”: qavah, yachal, damam and chakah. I’m just going to list all the translations of these four words since they are all fairly similar:
to bind together (like strands of a rope), look patiently, tarry or wait, hope, expect, look eagerly, trust, wait expectantly, to be dumb, grow silent, be still, long for.

Waiting is not just putting in time. Waiting in the spiritual life is a critical part of our prayer and our growth. If you don’t want to enter into the adventure of waiting, you may have a slightly mistaken idea of what the spiritual life is all about. Listen to what Isaiah says:

“For this cause the Lord will be waiting, so that he may be kind to you; and he will be lifted up, so that he may have mercy on you; for the Lord is a God of righteousness: there is a blessing on all who wait for him.” (Isaiah 30: 18)

Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.”

What mystery and power there is in waiting, being entwined with the Lord in longing, hope and trust and expecting him in eager stillness or still eagerness. We are encouraged so many times in scripture to wait - there must be something extremely valuable in this holy activity. Not only is there is a blessing on all who wait for him but he, too, is engaged in waiting – longing for us, longing to be kind to us, rising up so that he can have mercy on us. He emerges or rises like the dawn out of darkness – for us. Always for us.

This Advent, go on an adventure of Waiting. Identify the areas in your life where you have been waiting for something for a long time and give yourself permission to rejoice that simply by waiting for God to come you have been engaged in fruitful and holy prayer. Try to identify the places where you have begun to wait without hope or expectation and ask the Spirit for help to shore up the weak spots. See if there are any areas where your waiting has been undermined by a touch of cynicism or self pity. Put these things away. Examine yourself to see if there is self-blame or a feeling that God is not listening to you because you’re not good enough or you didn’t pray “the right way.” When you know waiting is prayer and adventure, there is no room for blame.

And finally, listen to these words from Carlo Carretto’s book titled “The God Who Comes”:

"God is always coming, and we, like Adam, hear his footsteps. God is always coming because God is life, and life has the unbridled force of creation...God comes because God is light, and light may not remain hidden. God comes because God is love, and love needs to give itself. God has always been coming; God is always coming.

God comes like the sun in the morning — when it is time."

SSSHHH!! Wait! Quiet. I think I hear Someone coming…