Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it, for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the times of the nations are fulfilled.
“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. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
-Luke 21:21-28 NRSV
Our Cautious Waiting
If I’m being honest with myself and with you, I confess that you’ll never need to ask me twice to flee for the mountains. Is it the quiet? The cleaner air? The altitude? The lack of cell service? Maybe all of the above. There is something to be said about leaving home in the rear view, when you’re heading toward the mountains.
But today’s reading isn’t talking about your next vacay, is it? In a strange mix of foreshadowing, and foreboding for that matter, Jesus predicts the eventual sack of Jerusalem and the Temple and then quickly pivots to his second coming. Jesus is painting a bleak picture filled with woe and terror, fear and loss, signs and portents, definitely not the backstory for this season’s new hit Hallmark Movie. Yet when our smelling salts have revived us from our fainting spell, and we witness the heavens shaken, we are not instructed, this time, to retreat. Rather, Jesus enjoins us to “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
So much for that awesome cabin in the mountains.
Right smack dab in the middle of fleeing in fear, and standing in anticipation, we have the embodiment of the Advent season. Here is our cautious waiting. Here is our anxious anticipation. But keep your head up, you don’t want to miss what’s coming. While it is hard to capture this strange juxtaposition between the already and the not yet in words, I’ve found lately the Rev. Malcolm Guite, Anglican priest and poet in no particular order, comes beautifully close. In his sonnet, “O Emmanuel”, for the 7th “Great O Antiphons'' of Advent, Fr. Guite invites us to wait expectantly, albeit alertly, for what is unfolding before us. He writes:
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
Here we stand and wait with our heads raised, inviting the hope within our hopelessness, the light in our darkness, our very redemption in the person of our God-with-us. Come Lord Jesus. Forget the signs. Bring on the dawn.
The Rev. Jeff Huston
Chaplain
Canterbury Center, Stillwater