Advent I

Yes, this Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Advent in the western Church -- that season of the tradition where we embrace the spiritual discipline of patience, waiting, and discernment, looking and listening to see what God is doing in the world, and how the Light and Word of truth, peace, and reconciliation is being brought to birth today. Good things to do in any season, and particularly as the light seems dim.

We light candles. We can hum along with carols ancient and modern, all speaking of hope in a troubled time, of a return of the light.

Yet, the readings we have tomorrow simply continue the tone of those we had been reading at the end of time (er, last week and preceding weeks) -- '...look for the Day of the Lord.' And this day will come quickly, and in surprising ways.

One reason for this continuity of themes is that in the ancient Church, Advent was a longer season, stretching back seven weeks prior to the winter solstice (er, Christmas), and we inherit these tones and themes continuing in the various lectionaries and readings for this whole time in the northern hemisphere. Appropriate for the 'end of time' and also for looking for the advent - the coming - of our Lord. A bridge of and in time.

We look backwards, and look to tell again the story of sweet Incarnation;

we look forward to that Day of the Lord in some final revealing -- the reconciliation and fullness of all things;

we look around us, and within ourselves, to see what is being brought to light there.

Medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart (Master Truehart) wrote thus,

"To be full of things is to be empty of God; to be empty of things is to be full of God. ...We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born."

What is being brought to life within you? What in this is of God - of the way to truth and ultimate life abundant?

What are signs that this is being brought to life?

Our church courtyard is now filled with trees -- suddenly, overnight. Sudden transformation. Wrought in this case by our friends from northern Vermont, delivering their piney goodness to Brooklyn. Yet, it is a sign with every inhalation, of other realities present among us, here on this Clinton Street in Cobble Hill, New York.

To paraphrase Isaiah: Tear open the heavens and come to us; reveal your presence and reality among and within us, now. Make us new, make us whole, make us again in your image and likeness.

Refresh us, and be born again within us.

Or, as Paul writes: ...we have been in every way enriched in Christ, so that we lack no spiritual gift as we wait for the Day of the Lord to come more fully among us.

Listen. Light a candle. Use the Advent calendar I attach, made by my friend Tom Mousin,(an Episcopal priest now in Maine, formerly of Vermont), to let time, itself, be transformed daily with simple acts and mantra-like verses. Let our eyes be opened to see the coming of the Day of the Lord.