Wake Up Call
You know the feeling when you are lying in bed, coming back to awareness from a deep sleep and you let your eyes open ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the alarm clock and see that there are still several minutes left before you have to get up?
The bed is so warm and comfortable. Maybe you adjust your position a little, not wanting to stretch, because that will wake up your muscles and signal your brain to start the process of waking up.
It is a heavenly moment, when it almost feels like you can make time slow down or stand still.
Sometimes I feel I can live in this time as if it is a mini-vacation.
But way back in my brain, I know is the time before something will happen.
I am living in Advent.
You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. - Romans 13:11
Advent for us refers to the liturgical calendar. It means Christmas is coming, when we will celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus.
While we see that moment as the beginning of our church year, that's not how the people living at the time saw it.
It was just another day, just like all the days before.
So imagine we are living back then, less than one month before the arrival of that newborn child.
Are we excited?
Do we even have a clue what is going on just a few miles away from the Temple in Jerusalem?
Picture this.
We are on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and we encounter a couple traveling together, heading in the same direction.
Joseph's young wife is with child and they are making their way to the town of his family where they will possibly stay with a member of his extended family.
They have high hopes to get there before the baby is due.
So, what is that encounter like?
In the waning light of the setting sun, if we decide to stop and share a meal, what would the conversation be like?
Is the young bride shy, eager to let her husband dominate the conversation? Or is she beaming with joy at the prospect of bringing our Lord and Savior into the world?
She knows what is about to happen. They both do.
Will they tell us?
If they do, what will we think of them?
Let's assume they don't. As we go on our way, do we comment that there was something quite different about her?
We have no clue of the significance of what is about to happen, about what has already happened.
Unless we are told, we are clueless, even though for generations on generations, the coming of the Anointed One, the Messiah has been expected, anticipated, like the rising of the sun and the beginning of a new day.
I am sure that for most people living at the time, the days, weeks, months, years leading up to this miraculous and blessed occasion were rather ordinary.
Each day is like the one before, and like us today, it is only the stand-outs that get noticed.
We tend to focus on the events, spectacles, battles, plagues, famines and natural disasters that interrupt the routine of life.
It was like that then, and it is like that now.
This one birth doesn't fit into the spectacles. It doesn't command the interest of the population.
Year after year to this day, Jews, just like Mary and Joseph, bring the stories of their faith into the home and share them over meals, recalling the events of the past and looking ahead to the coming of the Messiah.
Right in their midst a couple labors on to bring that blessed one into the world, and no one is expecting it.
The birth will go relatively unnoticed.
Oh, wait a minute, you might say. What about the star?
Though God marked the event with the appearance of a new star, that failed to capture the attention of the general population.
A few superstitious kings and rulers may have been shaken. Their astrologers and advisors may have been feeding them all sorts of theories and interpretations of the event, but the lone shepherd standing watch in the night might have gazed on it with little more than fleeting curiosity.
Hmm, he might say. Was that always there?
But after a brief time wondering if he had seen a star in that part of the heavens before, he would go back to his duty protecting of his flock, curling up at the gate of the pen, putting his body between them and any animal that might want to feast during the night.
I don't know about you, but I grew up with an expectation of mounting anticipation preceding major events.
This is due to the influence of Hollywood producers and directors, who orchestrate and manipulate my emotions and enthusiasm. Before something big happens, I am prepared with rising crescendos, close-ups and special effects.
So, I have a hard time understanding how the birth of Christ could go unnoticed.
Weren't they paying attention? Didn't they hear the music and feel the ground shake?
Hadn't the prophets told them this was going to happen?
Didn't they see the signs?
It makes me want to shout, wake up, people! God is making his entrance here!
When I was a lot younger, Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway.
I went to see it on a class trip, which can be considered amazing today, since we are so conscious of keeping our faith separate from our “real lives”.
That's another story we can talk about afterwards. What I want to focus on here is the title song, sung by Judas in the show.
Judas is crying out to Jesus to explain why he chose such a backward time to come.
“If you'd come today,” he says, “You could have saved a whole nation. Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.”
You tell him, Judas, “ I thought.
The challenge in the storyline is simple and yet very powerful. Is Jesus who we say he is?
And if he is, why choose to come into this world unnoticed?
Why would God want to be totally dependent on a teenager and her older husband to feed, protect, clothe, and nurture him?
Why not make that grand Hollywood entrance with trumpets blaring and the clouds of heaven splitting open?
Why not come today when we would all take notice, with images splashed across the Internet, with videos on YouTube and Vines, Tweets on Twitter, likes on Facebook and miracles on 34th Street?
OK, I dated myself there with that last one, but you get the picture.
Just as the country and the world stopped to take notice when Kennedy was assassinated, when the Challenger exploded in air, when the Twin Towers were struck, when the tsunami hit Japan, we would stop, look and listen.
Would we?
I don't think so.
Just like the people in Jerusalem in 4BC, just like the desert wanderers with Moses, just like Adam and Eve, we get comfortable in the present and we lose sight of what is most important.
Comfortable?
We might not consider our lives to be comfortable, but waking each morning without seeing it as a blessed gift, without wanting to spring up out of bed and thank God for another opportunity to do amazing things in his name and glory, without living in Advent, is just that.
This could be it!
This could be the last morning we awaken to the sun, the last chance we get to appreciate the beauty and majesty of this wonderful life, the last call for us to witness the coming of Christ in this world, shepherded by us, the new new shepherds of the flock.
We are not just called to be present in this world. We are all called to be Christ in this world.
When the alarm goes off in the morning, it isn't a fearful sound.
It isn't the bell that tolls to call us to the final days.
It is a call to wake up!
Come, be alive in this world!
Be what He wants us to be.
Judas taunted Jesus in the Broadway show, because Judas got it wrong.
He expected Jesus to do the work of fixing the world.
Don't we do the same thing?
Don't we expect God to set things right for us?
Don't we pray for his help for all who are like that baby in the manger, naked, alone, hungry, poor, in need to loving care and nurturing support?
Aren't we just like the Pharisees Jesus criticized for offering prayers rather than help?
Jesus told us that when we do things for the least among us, we do them to him – not for him, but to him.
We are Christ the needy, Christ the hungry, Christ the naked, Christ the poor, Christ the lonely, Christ the imprisoned, Christ the sick, Christ the lost.
And we are also Christ the healer, Christ the protector, Christ the defender, Christ the teacher, Christ the friend, Christ the miracle worker.
We are his presence in this world, at this time, in this moment.
We have everything we need to make a difference in this world and to be a force of change for Christ, with Christ and as Christ.
And we can spread the word to others to get them to help.
We have mass communication. We have all the things Judas sang about, so what are we waiting for?
There are people right outside our door that don't know Christ in any form.
They may believe in him, pray to him, cry, hunger and thirst for him, but they have not met him face-to-face.
They don't know him the way we know him. They do not hear stories about him. They don't experience caring people who do the things he did for the lost, the lame, the forgotten, the sick.
On Thanksgiving Day, many people at our church cooked, served, sang, prayed, ate, laughed and shared moments of true joy with neighbors, some known but many unknown.
Some of the people who came had been here before.
I hope they come back again, not just for a meal on Thanksgiving, but today and other Sundays throughout the year.
We have the power to make life better for others simply by inviting them to come be a part of something amazing.
This Advent, we can go out and find people who like the shepherds in the night didn't know that something big was about to happen.
We can do this. We can fill our churches for Christ by his birthday!
Go. In peace. To Love and serve Him by making a new friend in his name.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
More to come...
Image credit: anyka / 123RF Stock Photo