Every family tree has a few branches that have some people on them that you aren’t eager to have it generally known that you’re related to. My spouse will confirm from experience that I have more than a few branches like that, and this week I found myself remembering one of my cousins back in the Midwest. A few years ago this cousin went to the doctor and reported to him that she seemed to have pulled a muscle in her lower back while doing some heavy lifting in the garden. After examining her, the doctor informed her that she was expecting. In fact, he estimated that she was expecting in about three weeks.
Now there are all kinds of explanations about how things got to this point, it’s true that this cousin of mine was a bit huskier than average, that accounts for some of it, it’s also true that she has never been exactly the brightest candle on the Advent wreath. But what’s funny to all of us, among other things, is that we instinctively imagine how that felt: to be told that something that you usually have nine months to get ready for, making all the psychological and practical arrangements, painting, buying, daydreaming, wondering, changes in your work life, that you have to pack a process that usually takes nine months into just three weeks. You could think that you would be tempted to give up, to go home and laugh, to tell yourself that you can’t possibly do all that needs to be done to get ready. Nothing’s ready, especially not you. But guess what, if you’re in my cousin’s position, you have no choice. Something big is happening, and you don’t have the option of sitting it out. So up you go, moving furniture, buying clothes, getting the room ready. The clock is ticking.
We all know from the readings we heard today and from the ones we’re going to hear the next two Sundays that Advent is about preparation, and being ready, and we all know too that there is a suddenness to it. We have three weeks, too — and of course the question is, three weeks for what? Part of it, of course, you know: You’re going to be getting ready for parties, and entertaining, and buying things and sending boxes off to distant relatives, and managing your schedule with kids and friends and that family tree. That’s a lot of work, but you know, three weeks is plenty of time for all that. You’ve probably already started. What’s harder is to see how in three weeks we can do what Advent really asks us to do: to get ready for Jesus to come again, to make the world ready for someone new and incredibly important to come into it, someone who has already come, of course, but who needs to come again if his promises to us are going to be fulfilled.
The phrase “second coming” always sounds like something foreign, we don’t spend much time imagining it. Whenever anyone attempts to attach a date to it, like January 1, 2000, or whatever someone thinks Nostradamus said, we write off this kind of talk as nutty, and go on about our business. But preparation for Christmas is nothing less than preparing for Christ to come again. We’re not pretending that he is coming — we are remembering that the deepest hope of our faith is that he will soon be here. So sweeping, fixing up, throwing out, starting out fresh, renovating, adding a room, starting over: all those expectation words are all the right images for what we are facing in Advent. Three weeks to be ready.
This year, in particular, we’re going to find it hard to convince ourselves that there’s much at all we can do to heal the world’s injuries, to make anything ready. A lot of our confidence that the world is gradually making some kind of progress towards human dignity, or towards religions understanding one another, or towards an agreed-upon way of treating one another, all of that seems further off than it did 365 days ago. We could be forgiven, we think, for taking a year off from higher expectations. A good year to lay low. But maybe all that we’ve lost is not our hope that the world can be made ready but our illusion that it was ready, that somehow the work that we all need to do wasn’t quite so urgent. It’s urgent now. As St. Paul tells us today: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand.” Where do we start? Anywhere. Time to swallow hard and include some new people in the circle that we take care of, time to fix up an old and painful misunderstanding, time to speak up and get in there and negotiate a better deal for someone who isn’t getting a chance in life, time to personally erase some of the dividing lines and the misunderstandings that keeps us from seeing clearly into countries and religions and people, far away or next door. Time to put together as much as we can in the weeks we have left.
So Advent isn’t a pressure-free season — not with a gospel like today’s to kick it off. It would be nice to tell you to slow down during Advent and stop all the usual frantic activity — but that’s not entirely the point. The point is whether the activity brings light to you, brings light to the world around you, makes the world ready. Advent is hard work, staying up late trying to fit in everything, asking for help, waiting for messages, hoping that we haven’t missed the one important thing we know we forgot. So congratulations — we’re all expecting something wonderful. What to do first?