This Sunday is the First Sunday in Advent.
Over the four Sundays of Advent, we’ll explore a single word in the assigned gospel reading for the day. There will be four words, images that call forth the beauty of this season.
The Advent word today is: NEAR.
If you are part of the paid community, you can expect a Beautiful Advent post every day this week (except Saturday). Each weekday, you’ll get a new Advent calendar “window” with a surprise related to Sunday’s Advent word.
The word this week is NEAR.
The daily reflections start tomorrow — it isn’t too late to sign-up!
Or, give a gift of The Cottage to a friend.
Mark 13:24-37
Jesus said,
“In those days, after that suffering
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
God of unveiled truth, faithful flame in times of darkened sun and waning moon:
lift up our unknowing hearts, and waken our sleeping love to announce the coming dawn of unexpected peace; through Jesus Christ, the one who is to come.
— Steven Shakespeare
Shortly before my daughter was born, I felt both impatient and scared. Impatient because I was so tired of carrying so much extra weight and wanted the long months of pregnancy to end; scared because there was so much uncertainty around giving birth.
At an appointment well into the eighth month, I asked my doctor, “How much longer?”
She replied, “I don’t know exactly. But I can tell you that it is near.”
Near wasn’t good enough. I wanted to know when. As it happened, it was only a few days later. But it would have been helpful to know where as well. Having my water break while carrying groceries into the kitchen as a tornado warning went off was not ideal. I felt somewhat prepared for the time to be near, but there was no way to be ready for those unexpected circumstances.
“Near” is a strange word in the English language, one that is poetically slippery. It can be an adverb, a preposition, an adjective, or a verb. As a state or condition, as in “nearness,” it can also be a noun! Whatever its form, it indicates both — or either — imminence or proximity, time or place, when or where.
Sometimes, as with my baby’s birth, we are ready for one but not the other.
When it comes to today’s reading, Christians often fixate on time. When will God come into the world bringing peace and justice? When are the last days? When will the apocalypse occur?
Modern Christians aren’t the only ones wondering when the Kingdom of God will begin. Indeed, while standing outside the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus and the disciples are talking about this very thing! At the outset of this chapter, his friends ask, “Tell us, when will this be?” Jesus replies that difficult times are coming. There will be wars, persecutions, and a great sacrilege. “After that suffering,” he assured them, the Son of Man (a phrase used in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures) will come.
But Jesus doesn’t just say the time, he also suggests a place.
He instructed them to pay attention to the fig tree. As an observant gardener knows, when it leafs out, “summer is near.” A season is coming; a time is at hand.
“So also, when you see these things taking place,” Jesus continued, “he is near, at the very gates.” Near is both time and place. The time is approaching; the place is close by. Time and place. God’s dream is arriving and God’s dream is at hand.
We human beings live in both time and place. We think of them as things we can describe, measure, and fix. We experience them physically and bodily. Time and place aren’t a dream. They aren’t something we can’t see or know. We understand the passing of time and dwelling in place. And we know that sacred time and location aren’t the same as ours. We can’t measure those.
We are mostly frustrated, and perhaps become cynical or angry, when the divine intention seems tardy or absent. When? Where? Why so long? Why so far away? If we express our frustration, some well-meaning friend might say, “Well, God’s time is not our time.”
Over the years, I’ve heard many sermons address when and where by introducing the idea of the Two Comings of Advent. The First Coming was long ago — when Jesus came into the world, taught love of God and neighbor, was killed, and then, most surprisingly, was raised from the dead. The Second Coming is in the future — when Jesus will come again and establish God’s reign of love and justice.
But that’s still problematic. We don’t live back then and there — when Jesus was born. And we don’t live in the upcoming when and where — at the time of Jesus’ return. Advent can be a doubly frustrating exercise of celebrating two times and places we can’t ever know or experience.
We need an Advent of now and here, an Advent of Near.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great medieval theologian of love, once insisted that there were three Advents. “We know that the coming of the Lord is threefold,” he preached. “The first coming was in flesh and weakness, the middle coming is in spirit and power, and the final coming will be in glory and majesty.”
The middle Advent is the second of three Advents: 1) Jesus’ birth, 2) God coming into our lives, and 3) the final fulfillment. Bernard referred to the middle Advent as the “road” between the two chronological and spatial Advents. In this “middle,” or Second, Advent, God comes to us now and here, in the lives we have, a kind of inner Advent. “If you wish to meet God,” Bernard said, “go as far as your own heart.”
Thomas Merton, who was profoundly influenced by St. Bernard, wrote about the Second Advent, saying, “The second is in a certain sense the most important for us…
The “Second Advent” by which Christ is present in our souls now, depends on our present recognition of…the passage of Christ through our world, through our own lives.
Meditating on the past and future Advents, we learn to recognize the present Advent that is taking place at every moment of our own earthly life as wayfarers…
Meditation on the first Advent gives us hope of the promise offered us. The remembrance of the third reminds us to fear lest by our fault we fail to receive the fulfillment of that promise. The second Advent, the present, set in between these two terms, is therefore necessarily a time of anguish, a time of conflict between fear and joy.
God is Near. Maybe near is enough. Not just imminent, but immanent. We aren’t just waiting. But God already dwells with us. Advent is the season of now and here.
Keep awake to that.
INSPIRATION
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled to scorn—
Yet here did the Savior make His home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn —
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
— Madeleine L’Engle, “The Risk of Birth”
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” (tr. Joanna Macy)
MUSIC
The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see,
you will recognize him at any moment of your life.
Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.
– Henri Nouwen
✨SOUTHERN LIGHTS: IN PERSON OR ONLINE✨
January 12 -14, 2024
Our theme is Reimagining Faith Beyond Patriarchy and Hierarchy — and many in the The Cottage community have signed up to gather in person!
Last January, almost 700 people gathered at St. Simon’s Island in Georgia for a packed weekend of poetry, theology, and music.
JOIN US THIS COMING JANUARY!
YOU ARE INVITED to join me and my dear friend Brian McLaren as we reimagine our faith beyond patriarchy and hierarchy in our interior lives, in our communities of faith, and in the Scriptures. We’ve asked three remarkable speakers to take us through this journey: Cole Arthur Riley, Simran Jeet Singh, and Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader Polczer (our “resident” Mary Magdalene guide!). Our special guest chaplain for the weekend will be the Rev. Winnie Varghese (St. Luke’s Episcopal, Atlanta). And you’ll be treated to the amazing music of Ken Medema and Solveig Leithaug and other surprise offerings!
IN PERSON: Please come and be with us in Georgia. SEATS ARE FILLING UP.
There will be a special opening reception for members of the Cottage.
ONLINE: If you’d rather be with us virtually, you can choose that option. You will have access to the recordings after the event if you can’t watch live.
It helps with our tech planning if you sign up for the virtual option EARLIER rather than later. We appreciate early virtual registrations!
INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE.
Advent: the time to listen for footsteps – you can’t hear footsteps when you’re running yourself.
– Bill McKibben
I'm starting to wrap my head around that.
It's a scary thought, but also an empowering one.
That said, maybe scary and empowering are the same thing.
Rumi says, “I can’t explain the comings abd the goings / you enter suddenly and I’m nowhere again / inside the majesty.”
This Life is an advent*ure of Holy Being.
“Waiting” for what is nigh, is simple vulnerable open receptivity, as in Be Still, know that I Am.
The intimacy of conscious union in pure silent stillness is the power that transforms human consciousness from “waiting” to having the Indwelling Presence act through us.
Nearness is an intimacy of communion.
Oneness is no self at all wherein all vestiges of self/other dualism are embraced and erased.
The trinities spin and whirl within us giving rise to the newborn holy child continually.
How will This Being make Itself known in every situation, circumstance, person alive? What an adventure!! Be still in the face of the dualism, let truth burn away the vestiges while not moving.
Acting from Love in conscious union &/or communion is only natural.