Year B  – Advent 4 (A 7-Week Advent)
 Isaiah 64:1-9
 Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
 Mark 13:24-37

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

Joel and I recently saw… just happened to come across…  four episodes of what Netflix calls a Limited Series…  the series is based on a book by Anthony Doerr…  and is called All the Light You Cannot See…  it’s set during World War II…  in a Nazi-occupied town called Saint-Malo…  which lies in the northwest corner of France…  and along the English Channel…  on the surface… it’s a story about a young blind woman…  whose world is filled with touch and sound…  and a young German orphan…  who’s pressed into military service because of his affinity for electronics…  and his ability to hone in on and decipher faint radio transmissions…  and how their lives come together…

But below the surface…  it reminds us about how we need to listen to what’s not spoken…  so we can discern what’s really being said…  and about the need for human touch…  and how to live with and for others…   and how that’s inseparable from our coexistence…  and how we wait for the moments when our lives come together… 

And Advent is about waiting…  but not like waiting for water to boil…  ( which seems like it will never happen )…  it’s not about waiting for the season’s first big snowstorm…  or your baby’s first steps…  it’s not about waiting for Godot ( who…  by the way…  never shows up )…  it’s not about waiting for the war to be over ( though that’s something I’m certainly waiting for )…  Advent is not about waiting for that check to arrive…  or waiting for your car to warm up when its seventeen degrees outside…  or waiting for the light to turn green…  it’s not about waiting to get through airport security…  or about that ( seemingly ) endless wait in the doctor’s office…  and here’s what may be really surprising…  Advent isn’t even about waiting for Christmas morning…  for the babe in the manger…  for the infant Jesus…  the primary focus of Advent…  the whole intent of the season…  the thing for which we wait…  is the moment that makes sense out of all our other moments…  it’s the focus of our Christian hope…  represented by the full manifestation of the Reign of God established in Christ…  and all throughout Advent…  however long it is…  this is the focus of our Sunday morning readings…  only in the last week do these readings begin to shift from a focus on eschatology ( or end-times )…  to that of incarnation…

In 1990…  my former wife and I…  along with our two-year-old daughter… moved from Iowa back to Ohio…  and lived for a season with my mother-in-law…  even in the best of circumstances…  that can be a real challenge…  but because she came out of a dysfunctional and abusive marriage…  with great regularity…  she spoke shame and invalidation to our daughter…  for example…  one evening Rachel felt afraid because of a noise she heard outside her bedroom window…  and her grandmother said…  What’s the matter with you…  there’s nothing out there…  instead of something like…  Oh honey…  it’s OK… come here…  Grandma will keep you safe…  and one evening…  when I had had enough…  I calmly…  well…  as calmly as I could…  told her that that kind of interaction was not OK with her mother and me…  that Rachel might think that something was wrong with her…  since she knew quite well how she felt…  but one of her primary caregivers was telling her there was no good reason to feel that way…  I wanted her grandmother to see…  to understand something that even a young blind woman could understand…  but instead…  she said…  So you’re telling me I’m stupid…  and in that moment…  it seemed as though her cosmos shifted…  and not in a good way…  she had the proverbial rug pulled out from under her…  and it may have felt to her…  like the sun was darkened and the stars fell from the heavens…  she just didn’t have a frame of reference to see what I was sharing with her…  and she didn’t seem interested in understanding…  she didn’t want to see the light she couldn’t see…

During seminary I went on a four-day silent retreat at the monastery in Kentucky where Thomas Merton lived…  and we were invited to attend…  at least once…  each of the seven Daily Office services throughout the day…  and except for worship…  there was only one hour…  in a meeting led by one of the monks… when we might speak…  and as the sounds of the city faded…  and the warp and woof of our social chatter was peeled away…  it became easier to experience the words of Ps. 46:10…  Be still…  and know that I am God…  and to hear and feel that still small voice rise up within me…  and I was reminded of the desert mothers and fathers…  who left behind the distractions of the cities…  in order to become aware of…  and remain awake to…  what the Spirit was saying…  in fact…  the silence became so comfortable…  that when I left the Abbey…  it almost took too much effort to speak…

The first few lines of this morning’s Gospel lesson come after Jesus’ predictions in vv. 1 – 23 about the Temple’s destruction…  and the persecutions which would follow…  but he says that just as you know that summer is near when you see the budding fig tree…  you’ll also know that the Son of Man is near when the sun is darkened…  and the moon won’t give its light…  and the stars fall from heaven…  those things haven’t happened yet…  and we’re told that no one knows when they will…  not the angels in heaven…  or even the Son…  but only the Father… 

But even so…  there are things which happen in the world…  and in our lives…  that feel as final and as consequential…  as these cosmic events…  and which seem to come out of nowhere… like a thief in the night…  perhaps like the corrective I shared with my mother-in-law all those years ago…  or like Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel…  like the moments in Ukraine when bombs fall…  or like an unexpected cancer diagnosis…  or the death of a friend or loved one…

But the Gospel reassures us…  Jesus reassures us…  that when things like these take place…  he is near…  at the very gates…  and while these gates may be like the gate between life and death through which we’ll all pass…  they’re also the gates through which we pass when we have an epiphany and become increasingly aware…  alert…  and awake…  because it’s when we are cracked open…  when we reach a new kind of impasse…  when how we used to respond no longer works…  that we can be open to see and hear more of God’s Wisdom and Truth…

As Christians…  and maybe especially during Advent…  we find ourselves waiting to see All the Light We Cannot See…  and hear those faint impulses of the Spirit…  and I think that for the vast majority of us…  the light we can see…  is like the small tip of an iceberg which floats above the ocean’s surface…  and the sounds we can hear…  are like an old AM radio with a faltering battery located in the middle of nowhere…  but that the majority of that light and sound…  is waiting to be seen by eyes which don’t depend on the visible light spectrum…  and to be heard by ears which don’t depend on sound waves transmitted through the air…  but which see and hear in other… more inward and spiritual ways…

The story of the cosmos will end safely…  lovingly…  and securely…  in Jesus’ hands…  though we don’t know when…  the earliest Christians thought Jesus would return in their lifetimes…  but it may not be for a billion more years…  it doesn’t matter when though…  our waiting will not be in vain…  because while Heaven and earth may pass away…  Jesus will be waiting for us at the gate…  and his words…  and our relationship with him…  will endure beyond space and time…