Spirit of the Heartland

A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent
Johanna S. Morrigan

Isaiah 40:l-11
Psalm 85
2 Peter 3:8-15a, 18
Mark 1:1-8

"Go ahead.....Just sit there"

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer.

I love the season of Advent - long before I really understood that it was Advent, or what that meant, I have always loved this time of the year. Now you often hear people dreading this time of year...they talk about one more miserable winter - about how sterile winter is, like a frozen landscape that looks as if it will never come to life again.
Yet to me there has always seemed to be a special promise about this time of the year...a promise wrapped in silence and stillness....

It is a time of slowing down, of resting, of reflecting, a time of hibernating.....
It is a time when all of creation seems to invite us to be quiet and still.....
It is a time to allow some mystery that we can't quite explain to grow within us....
-- We recognize it when the bears settle into their winter homes.
-- We see it as the squirrels cease their frantic gathering of acorns, and begin to slow down.
-- We sense it as the earth heaves a great sigh of relief after once again birthing and bringing to fruit her abundant harvest.
As a child I knew it was happening when my grandfather would begin to slow his pace - when the almost constant demands of life as a farmer would begin to subside and he would spend more time rocking in front of the woodstove.... Sometimes reading, sometimes telling stories of the old days, but often simply being quiet and still, as though patiently waiting for something.....I would gaze at him and wonder... what was he doing?
There is a magical wonder in this time of the year, with its lengthening nights, and the silent beauty of snowflakes drifting down and piling up as though fashioning a marvelous blanket that covers the entire earth.
As a child it always felt to me as though God was tucking me in for a long sleep, and that he was whispering something to me.....something like, "Be still now and sleep. I will come and speak to you in your dreams. I will be there with you in the silent times of the dark. Something remarkable is going to happen...and I want you to be prepared...so be still, and rest, and wait."
But the promise of this Advent season so fills us with wonder and anticipation that it is difficult at best to remain still... and to wait for the voice we are promised; a voice like a soft, glowing flame of light that seeks to enter the darkest places within each one of us....
And it is especially hard to be silent and to wait in this world that we live in today. A world where we often shake our heads and bemoan the crass commercialism that also accompanies this season.
We are all too familiar with it. I doubt there is an adult here who hasn't dreaded this time of the year with all of its..... glitter...and tinsel...and gifts... with the hectic rush of shopping...and parties...and cooking...and baking. And then there are the annual visits from the family... You know, like Great Aunt Martha who always hates any gift you give her no matter how hard you try each year to please her... Or your nephew, Jimmy, who never fails to spill cranberries on the white damask tablecloth, while his little sister is terrorizing the cat......
And yet over the years I've become much less critical of our bumbling and frantic efforts to capture the mystery of this season... I even find myself feeling some compassion for us... It seems as though in our eagerness over the last 2 millennia to reach out to the glory of the coming of the Lord, that we have, like over-eager children, run on ahead, too impatient to wait for the directions... And we've gotten ourselves completely and hopelessly lost.
We really didn't meant to...we thought we knew where we were going , that we were behaving like mature and level-headed adults... But in the last analysis, we are still children... God's children who are eager and impatient. We want God's promise of salvation, of the coming of the Kingdom right now!
We don't like waiting.... it is such a waste of time... it isn't productive... After all, how many of us grew up hearing those old proverbial admonitions, like

Stop day dreaming and do something useful...
Or...how can you just sit there and do nothing?
Or...what on earth is the matter with you? Can't you find something better to do than just sit there?
But God's call is to just sit there.... and to be still and to wait. It is an ancient call that has been repeated over and over again from the time of antiquity... Isaiah tells us to pay attention, to listen for the voice of the messenger who will cry out in the wilderness. We are to wait and to listen...
Mark boldly announces that the messenger has come, and John, the Baptizer, proclaims the coming of one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit...we are to wait for him... And finally Second Peter reminds us that we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is at home.
Now that is a lot of waiting... And given our attidude about waiting, we've thought we might just hurry things along over the centuries. And the more we have rushed about trying to bring forth the Kingdom, the more elusive it has become... Until finally we reach the point of utter and complete exhaustion.
I expect that we all recognize this place... We are so exhausted that we cannot take one more step, we are totally depleted and empty... The excitement of the season has drained away, leaving us cold and forlorn... We can't knit one more hat, we can't wrap one more present, we're too tired to even get up and crawl into bed.
And then it happens... The mystery of this season calls to us.... We see a single star blinking in the inky blackness of the night; we gaze at a tiny ember still glowing in the fireplace..... And we are reawakened to the wonder of creation. All the noise fades away and we hear that clear, small voice calling to us to be still...to wait...
And we recognize the ancient call of Isaiah with which Mark opens his gospel... "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness..."
We've been so lost in the wilderness that we didn't even know it, until our exhaustion forced us to stop, and to look around... Of course, God has known all along that we were lost, and so God, in God's perfect love, put God's messenger right here in the wilderness with us where we most need him.
God sends us a messenger that reassures us that our way has already been prepared... The obstacles have been removed. The uneven ground has been leveled, and the rough places have been made smooth... God sends us a messenger that invites us to simply turn around and to see God...
During this Advent season, we are called to stop, to be still, to quietly turn around and to discover that it has been God who has been waiting...who has been waiting all along... waiting for us to allow God to tuck us in and whisper God's promise of love...that the one is coming who will bring light to all the world so that in the darkness there shall be death no more.
Amen.

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