Keep awake! Our entry into Advent, the season of waiting is a command. Keep awake. There’s something about that command. The assumption that we are inclined to fall asleep. To lose focus. To not be prepared. And we get the command from Jesus in this weird, apocalyptic sounding message. Can’t we just have a nice, quiet, peaceful beginning to Advent?
Well, no. So much of today’s Gospel reading takes us back to the people in Daniel’s time. “The Son of Man coming in the clouds” in verse 26 is a direct reference to Daniel chapter 7, verse 13. It points back to a time when the people didn’t know what the Messiah coming would look like. “Keeping awake” meant being able to tell the difference between false Messiahs and dishonest leaders, in order to know and recognize when the Messiah actually comes.
Mark calls us into “keeping awake” to what Daniel says. We begin Advent at the cross, not the manger. We find ourselves at the edge of Holy Week, when we are all ready to be at the scene of the Nativity. In today’s Gospel, Jesus prepares his disciples for his leaving. And so unlike Daniel, who awaits the first coming of the Messiah, Jesus is pointing to the death and resurrection and second coming of the Messiah.
Keep awake. The Gospel of Mark is written in about year 70CE. Post Jesus’ death. 70CE was the Year of the Fall, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The temple where Jews believed God resided. So it’s safe to say that the times were turbulent. And it’s safe to say that the people thought the world was going to end. And it’s safe to say that no one could foretell the future.
Living in fear is akin to falling asleep. For when we live and respond to others in fear, our focus is on self preservation. Mark is speaking to a particular audience, who is living in the hell of religious people revolting against the powerful Roman government. A leadership that seems to go against everything the faithful people believe.
Everything feels like it is at stake. And Mark offers the words “Beware! Keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come.” Stay in this state of spiritual awareness – be alert, notice, for you do not know. That revolt in 70 helps us understand Jesus’ words “this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.”
The people in Mark’s time thought truly the end was near. The political leaders did not hold the same values as the faithful people did. The destruction of the Temple was surely the moment that God would abandon the people. Being scared, having fear — this is a very realistic feeling to have when the world feels like it’s gonna implode in on itself.
But we know there was life after the fall of the Temple. We have the benefit of that story as history. And we have the benefit of so many other horrific instances when governments and leaders and people make themselves into gods. We sit in a political climate today that projects the same whirlwind of fear and anxiety into us, no matter which party we claim as our own. Just like the people in Daniel’s time, trying to find and follow the real Messiah. And the people of Mark’s time, trying to understand that God is doing something new. And we’re left with the command, “Keep awake.”
If we focus on the fear, those words will bring no comfort. If we imagine the world coming to an end, whether by global warming or by universal healthcare being initiated or by world leaders arguing, or by any of the things that we debate to death in our daily lives…we take a step away from keeping awake if our fear is what leads and guides us. What if, in the spirit of keeping awake, we spend a little more time looking for God? Where is God trying to speak?
In her book Traveling Mercies, writer Anne Lamott quotes a friend by saying, “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Advent calls us into keeping awake, alert — to look for God, not as we imagine, but as God imagines.
We are/This is God’s creation. Mark brings us into the story right when we are about to kill God’s son, Jesus. Not the peaceful Advent picture we hoped to see. But our actions as a collective people of faith don’t have the final say. There was a first coming of the Messiah, as promised. There was a resurrection, an ascension into heaven, as promised. There will be a second coming, as promised.
Do we have enough evidence of God’s unbroken promises to believe it? Because believing is what shapes our vision for today, for how we see the past, and for what we look for in the future.
Believing matters. Even when it’s hard, looking for God in the places we don’t expect matters. Some of you have been following prayer requests for my friend’s daughter, Rita. She’s been on our prayer list for 3 months and 3 days. On the last “first day of school” – the beginning of her senior year – the car she was driving was hit by a truck on her way to school. Every parent’s worst nightmare. She was unconscious.
Her mom, Michelle made a desparate plea for prayers. It was beyond begging. It was demanding. “Send love, light, prayers to whatever God you follow. I cannot lose my daughter.” She rallied a world of people to keep awake, to keep begging God to wake her daughter up from a coma. When the doctors tried to prepare her for the worst, she believed something else would happen. She knew the difficulties that life brings, but she did not cave into the fear of what could happen.
One day, when least expected, Rita woke up and asked to see her dog. This weekend, Rita went home. A world of people prayed for that moment; though the story could’ve ended differently, it serves as a reminder of what it means to keep awake. To rely on God. To hope for miracles, like Rita waking up.
The prophet Isaiah looks for the coming of God… Asking God to rend the heavens, to tear open the barrier that separates heaven and earth and COME to save your people. And God DOES come to us, not in a wrenching apart of the skies as we ask, in some dramatic expression of togetherness. But in the birth of a child, in a stable. If we listen, if we’re awake, we’ll hear the heavens cry out with angels song, with evidence of God being holy and near to us. And if we’re alert, we’ll find the star that appears to lead the way.
God comes as we do not expect. God comes to be part of creation, to experience what it is to be human. A child who will all too soon be in Jerusalem warning his disciples that this time is about to end. To believe. To hold dearly what they know in their hearts: God’s promises stand the test of time. No matter what.
It is even easier NOW for us to drift away, to lose our intentionality about practicing our faith. It is even easier than in Mark’s day to keep our faith to ourselves. To not share with future generations why we believe in the first place. To lose heart. In his letters, we hear Paul plea and beg us to stay strong, like a mother calling her daughter awake from a coma.
Keep awake. Do not fear. Notice God. Look for where God already shows up in your daily life. Pay attention to the places you least expect God to be. Listen for God’s pleas for your heart. You might hear God calling to you in the homeless man who lives in his car off Bridge Street. You might hear God in the person you 100% disagree with politically. You might hear God in the voice of a young child, who receives a backpack filled with food in our kitchen. You might hear God in the cries of those who live daily in fear.
What I know and what I believe in the very core of my being – my faith — is that you WILL hear God. Keep awake, for we do not know when the time will come…
But Jesus does. We can take courage that in every future event, God shows up as God always does. Christ is coming. And Christ is here, every day and for all time. Inviting us in ways we don’t expect to tell the Good News. Someone today needs to hear about your faith and our amazing God. Keep awake.
