What is to come?

Matthew 24:36-44

The disciples have asked the question how will we know when all of these things are to happen. The temple being destroyed, the unfair and unjust structures of the time we live in, when will it end? How will we know? The answer isn't a timetable. The answer is in signs and ways to mark an end, but what end is never elaborated upon.

Advent brings us these scriptures of unveiling. What is to come? How long? The end is near. Yet here we are struggling with the same questions. How long must prices be so high some people are deciding between food or heat, prescriptions or food? How long must there be mass shootings and people not feeling safe at school, in the market, at a party, or at church? How long will we live with the dissonance of the world around us?

Jesus' advice, keep awake. Be alert, keep watch, all these things which we feel are not helpful. What about a timetable Jesus? or what about letting us know how we will know? Just like the disciples we are left to struggle in the dissonance. 

Advent is a time of waiting. Waiting for the promise of hope, waiting for peace, waiting for joy to come, and trying to live it out in love. The problem is, when we as humans wait too long we feel as though it doesn't matter. All that Jesus taught doesn't matter. All that we learn about God in the scriptures doesn't matter. Because we are faced with difficult decisions and problems and we lose the very things our faith is known for. Maybe this is why as the days get darker, and light is shorter we find these scriptures which take us deeper into the dissonance. We wander deeper into what is dark.

When our children were young a new series came out by Lemony Snicket called A Series of Unfortunate Events about the Baudelaire children and how they came to be orphaned. They were at the mercy of a man named Count Olaf who always disguised himself, but not well enough for the children not to know him. They go from one bad place to another. From one unfortunate time to another. From finding a new parent only to have that one killed as well. There are 13 books, and you begin to lose hope for the children. You know what is coming in the story and plot. I gave up by book seven and couldn't read anymore. 

The thing about us as a people of faith though is we have these wonderful things we can plant. Planting hope, even if it is for one person by giving shelter, food, or listening to their story is just one way we live into the dissonance. Or by helping sides to resolve an issue helps to plant peace in one corner. Or in living fully into joy, knowing there are those who can show us the way. After all the Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu wrote a whole book about joy and how to live a joy filled life. Just watch the video of them dancing together and you will begin to see the seeds of joy. 

Lastly, and more importantly there is love. Just listen to our own Presiding Bishop preach on love. You will come away changed, you will come away revived, and you will come away wondering where you might plant this wonderful hope. Because all of this is rooted together. We just sometimes lose our way in a world which does not encourage these because they are looked upon as weak. Yet, these are the roots they cannot see which dig down deep into the darkest of dissonance and hug it so life may come.

So keep alert! Don't lose the gifts given to us as a community. The gifts of watching and waiting, of planting all these flowers in the ground of deepest darkness. So we might nourish a world which is living without hope, without peace, without joy. Plant all these in love with one another, and we will find the time has passed more quickly than we thought. We will find the way to walk through the dissonance and give witness to the light within. Passing it on from one to another until our world is lit with the hope given in waiting for the promised one. The true light of the world.