Advent 1 Year B

You have my permission to peek at your Christmas present ahead of time.

Mark 13:24-37

It’s sometimes hard to separate Advent from Christmas.  The church wants us to make a clear, delineated distinction between the two seasons, but I must admit that I sometimes wonder if that’s even possible. The Advent wreath gently whispers, wait.  But the rest of the world is telling us we better start gearing up; we better start thinking about presents and wrapping paper, decorations, and Christmas cards.

Now, as a priest in the church, I’m expected to be protective of the church seasons, but I’ll confess to you that I have mellowed some over the years.   I’m not quite as interested anymore in joining the Advent police, snooping around in sacristies looking for evidence of any violations. I have come to realize that the line between waiting for a gift and opening the gift is a fine line indeed.  Sometimes in my life, I haven’t been able to tell the difference.

I’m going to try to talk to you about waiting for the gift, but I trust that you’ll forgive me if I spoil the surprise by going a little too far, maybe even tearing a few ribbons and foil wrapping ahead of schedule.

Do any of you remember what I like to call that One Special Gift Phenomenon?

When I was a child, every Christmas there was always ONE gift under the tree that completely captivated me.  There might have been six or seven gifts under the tree with my name on them, but there was always one that drew me in like a magnet. . . one that charmed me more than any of the others. Do any of you remember such a gift?  

It’s the one that you poke at and squeeze, stretch and compress, rattle, shake and smell until it almost unwraps itself, and even though you’ve read the to/from tag on it fifty times already, you read it again just to savor the reassurance that it is indeed for you!

I really think that of all the Christmas traditions out there from eggnog to sitting in Santa’s lap, gift giving is the most symbolic of Advent as well as Christmas. Advent is the season that comes around every winter to remind us that we live in a God-invaded world. It’s here to remind us of the importance of expectation and anticipation. Advent is a season that begs us to wonder what God is going to give us next. Advent is a four-week season that is designed to debunk the bumper sticker that says tomorrow has been cancelled due to lack of enthusiasm.

This season reminds us that there is a package waiting for us. The to/from tag will come next week in the form of one John the Baptist calling to us from the wilderness. It’s a package that is wrapped in the most beautiful way; it’s a package wrapped in the beauty of intense and passionate love. . . for God so loved the world indeed!

 This gift, however, is a gift that requires each of us to go through the preparatory waiting period lest we fail to treasure its magnificence.  It’s a gift that should be closely examined these four weeks before Christmas.  It should be pinched and shaken with all the excitement, wonder and anticipation of a miracle, and in the ritual, we should discover that just maybe, in the middle of a cold winter’s night, it might be possible to come to the realization that tomorrow doesn’t have to be like yesterday.

When I was about eight or nine years old, I was bored one day in early December, and I began to rummage around in the garage. Lo and behold, I stumbled on something marvelous. It was in a box. It was a shiny silver airplane. It was so big I could barely hold it with both hands.  When you turned it on, lights flashed inside and out, and the propellers – all four of them – began to spin; the landing wheels turned, and the motors roared.  I couldn’t believe that I had found something so wonderful in what was probably the most cluttered and dusty garage in our neighborhood. 

Where did this come from? I had to know, so I ran into the house, and I asked my mother about this wonderful find of mine. I know now what I didn’t know then. She and my father had hidden that giant silver airplane in the garage, and it was to be a Christmas present for me.

My mother thought fast on her feet, however, and she said that it was for one of my cousins, and she was hiding it for my uncle until Christmas. I bought the whole story. I was instructed to not touch it again and to stay out of the garage, but my mind would always wander there in awe of what was inside and to that box on the shelf in there.

Can you imagine my surprise when I found out on Christmas Day that the beautiful silver airplane was for me?  I can’t remember very many Christmases where there was more joy in my heart.

Now I may have crossed over that fine line between Advent and Christmas, but before you report me to the bishop, please know that my intention was to offer you that story not to call your attention to Christmas, but to deliver you right into the heart of Advent!

You see, I got to lay my eyes on that gift and to relish it, but it wasn’t until Christmas that I discovered that it indeed was truly mine!

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus says he’s going to come to us, and when he says that we don’t know when, he doesn’t mean that sometimes he’s here and sometimes he isn’t; he means that we will sometimes discover the Christ in our midst at the most unexpected hour. Have you ever thought that as the Body of Christ, each of you can be such a gift to each other?  I wonder how often our Sunday hour of worship has been the unexpected hour.

Jesus Christ is the gift under our tree during Advent, and Advent is here so that on Christmas we will know, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that the gift of Jesus is indeed ours, and because of that, we are also the gift!

Advent is not here to tell us WHEN Jesus will come, for he will come many times. He will come in the Sacrament we share together. He will come in the love of a mother or the hug of a friend. He will come in the most unlikely of moments, some of them even more unlikely than the little town of Bethlehem during a Roman occupation.

My friends in Christ, the church has given us a four-week moment to squeeze and compress the package, and it’s OKAY.   Go ahead and peek at the gift. Get used to the idea that the gift is indeed FOR YOU!