+Remember the old television program, Mission: Impossible? At the beginning of the show, that week’s mission would be outlined for the agents by a disembodied voice coming from a reel to reel tape recorder. Before the closing words, “This tape will self-destruct in 5 secondsl” came the equally iconic phrase: “Your mission, if you choose to accept it is:” In Advent, our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to let the seeds of hope promised by the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, pronounced by John the Baptist and incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ to germinate within us, growing to great heights.
You see as we wind into the last two weeks of Advent, it’s time for us to wake up and see the light. It’s time for us to accept our mission: preparing the soil of our souls, allowing the seed of God’s word to take hold within us putting down deep and strong roots of faith.
Last Saturday, Bishop Bill held an Advent retreat for all the priests of the diocese. Our morning speaker was the Bishop of Rochester, Prince Singh. Bishop Singh made an excellent presentation and one of his statements has stayed with me all week.
He said:
“Advent is a time when we remember and celebrate the first Advent, the incarnation of Christ through Jesus’ birth. Advent is also a time when we anticipate Christ’s second coming, the second Advent, if you will, when Christ comes in glory to unite this world and the next in apocalyptic drama.”
Bishop Singh then said, and this is what has stuck with me all week: “well, that covers the past and the future, but what about now? What does Advent have to tell us about the present time?
Where can we find the Christ in today?”
The answer, of course, is right here. Christ is in the world today through us. We are the Body of Christ. In the present, in the today, in the here and now. We’re it.
And while we’ve spent a lot of time this Advent talking about preparing ourselves for the in-breaking of God-in-the-flesh right here on earth, I’m not sure we’re all aware of just what that means. God’s breaking into the here and now goes much more smoothly, if we welcome God’s presence in our lives. If we are open to God’s desire to dwell within, between and through us. It means receiving this incredible gift. Accepting it, ingesting it, embodying it. Being it. Growing it.
To be the Body of Christ in the present day means we must welcome, as John tells us in today’s Gospel, the Light of the world, into us. We must be a vessel for that light, letting it fill us-- growing, gaining more power, more luminance, more wattage. All we need to do is notice the light. Accept it. Receive it. For once we accept The Light, we are giving God the room to do God’s work within us.
Light is a big deal this time of year. As the author O.E. Rolwaag puts it in his classic novel of prairie life, Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie “[the winter days are] bleak and gloomy, with cold that congeal[s] all life. ” As frontal systems stall along the banks of the Great Lakes, the dark can really get to us. We can go days without seeing the sun. Vitamin D deficiency is a significant medical issue around these parts!
I think all the Christmas lights people put up is a subconscious response to the enveloping darkness of winter. I’m not sure how dark it gets in the Holy Land—I’ll report back after my trip---but my guess is that the dark was a scary thing in the time of Jesus. No electricity, no battery operated lanterns, no flashlight apps on smart-phones…when the sun had set and the clouds obscured the stars and the moon, it must have been pretty darn dark.
So referring to the coming of the Messiah as the coming of the light makes sense, for the light brings security and comfort. In the light of day things generally look more hopeful, we feel more capable, less vulnerable, less alone. Light brings Hope. Security. Comfort.
Simply put, Light feels good. Jesus as the Light of the World, feels good too. So what’s the problem?
Us. You see we have a part to play in God’s presence in the world—in the current Advent---but, we have a tendency to complicate everything. Our part, our mission, if we choose to accept it is to receive the light, welcome it within us, as best we can, and then step back and let God, let the Holy Spirit do the rest.
One commentator puts it like this:
“It is crucial for our salvation that we know what is the work of God, and what is our work… that we don’t get these two things mixed up – expecting God to do what we must do, or, trying to do what God must do.
One key distinction between what is our work, and what is God’s work is that it’s our work to prepare for God’s presence, to be open to God, to trust God, to receive God’s presence, to respond to God’s blessing, and to accept the mission that God gives; but it is God’s work to provide both the seed and the fruitfulness.
Advent is a time for us to prepare the soil. God provides the seed and Jesus Christ--the light of the world—comes to nurture that seed into a hearty, flourishing plant of faith growing and blooming within us.
This mission—spreading the Good News of Christ throughout the world-- may seem like a huge goal, a difficult task, a mission impossible, but we don’t do this alone. We don’t have to worry about the seed or the fruit. We don’t have to worry about how the plant will fare—we don’t even have to worry about the harvest. We just need to prepare the soil---our very selves—to receive the seed and then simply to turn toward the light. For this mission, the mission of being the Body of Christ in the Here and Now is, with God’s help, definitely a Mission Possible. +
No comments:
Post a Comment