I am supposed to be waiting for Jesus. That’s what I tell people for four weeks every November and December. “Stand guard. Be on the lookout. Jesus is coming back.” My sister, who likes to keep me humble despite (or because of) my preacher role, once gave me a refrigerator magnet with these words: “Jesus is coming. Look busy!” Oddly enough, that’s pretty much the biblical mandate. We are to wait, not idly, but with eager anticipation, acting on behalf of the master until he returns. Pity the fool who gets caught sleeping or drunk or exploiting the other servants. Matthew warns of weeping and gnashing of teeth for the ill-prepared servant.
Every Advent I preach those end-of-times-texts that come across like clunky, old school horror films with special effects designed to frighten but, in our current sophisticated, evolved state, only make us laugh. I might as well wear sandals and a white robe while waving a hand-made sign and screaming, “Repent!”
No wonder we preachers would rather stick with the baby Jesus theme. A virgin giving birth, while still unbelievable, warms the heart and comforts in this sexually schizophrenic age of promise rings and internet porn. Besides, we all know how to welcome a baby. Why should we spoil the party by mentioning an apocalypse? Besides, the apocalypse we are most familiar with is the zombie variety.
But the biblical texts persist. They show up year after year. My job demands that I take them seriously, as seriously as an impending zombie apocalypse, even though few people seriously anticipate Jesus’ return. Not in my church, anyway. We are too content, too comfortable, too caught up with decorating and shopping to yearn for the risen Christ to come back and take names. We wouldn’t exactly be glad to see him. He’d disrupt our plans for this year to be the year when the Norman Rockwell scene comes to life around our bountiful table.
Perhaps that is precisely why we need those pesky scenes of God’s surprise invasion. We long for life to be more than appearances because we know that appearances are slippery, fleeting and deceiving. The perfect tree, the beautifully wrapped presents, the cards representing the goat purchased for some far away impoverished family — none of them tells the whole story because everyone’s story has apocalyptic seasons.
One Throwback Thursday, my little brother posted a picture on Facebook. It was an Olan Mills church directory photo of my family taken when I was 12. Well-dressed and carefully coiffed, the smiles looked genuine — and they were. Looking at it now, however, I can’t unknow what soon came to pass. My family became fodder for the kind of drama that plays well in sleepy small towns. That church directory photograph would be one of the last of us as a family. Even though divorce and remarriage are common, those involved often experience weeping and gnashing of teeth no matter how intact they appear on the outside.
Hence, I appreciate John the Baptist crashing the Christmas parties every year, as welcome as the drunk uncle who speaks the unfiltered truth — yet that truth is a relief to hear when you thought you were the only one who knew it.
“Keep watch!” the Gospel writers warn. The Son of Man comes unannounced, as sudden and unexpected as the flood in Noah’s day. So, stay awake!
Thus saith the Lord just as children are getting out of school for Christmas break and the marketing machine of consumerism kicks into high gear. The people in the pews grow sick of unknown, end-of-times-themed Advent hymns. They want choirs of angels and beatific Mary in blue and Linus-like shepherds and the pageant that conflates all the Gospels and the timeline, too. The Wise Men don’t show up until weeks later, but, hey, the kids like the gold-trimmed costumes and Burger King crowns and everyone needs to have a part. Come on, baby Jesus! Silent Night. Holy Night. All is calm. All is bright.
No fear or foreboding here. Cuteness rules, what with the donkey and the sheep hitting each other with their tails and the angels with their halos askew. Right then, what if the Risen Christ decided to swoop down on a cloud of great glory? It would be a heck of a lot more interesting. However, I suspect that I, along with some reluctantly brave ushers, would be expected to shoo him out. Or maybe I could have that pastoral authority moment my Baptist brothers (and I do mean, brothers) have with regularity. The sinner who has been moved by the hymn and my powerful preaching would come up and be saved! Maybe I could put my arm around the risen Christ’s shoulder and I would ask him to bow his head. We could pray to let him invite Jesus into his heart — helpless, under-our-control infant Jesus. Then he would weep and gnash his teeth at the soul-felt revelation of having messed up our plans. I could be Cindy Lou Who to his Grinch.
Afterward, the pageant could continue. We could all sing “Away in a Manger” and go home, put the kids to bed and play Santa. Now, that everyone would applaud. I would hear for weeks how well I handled a difficult situation. I would be called “pastoral” because doesn’t that usually translate into keeping the status quo?
So, how am I to wait eagerly, during Advent, and every single day, for the returning, victorious, ticked-off, risen Christ? How am I to instruct others to do so, too? None of us really wants to hear this order upturning message even if we know all is not as it seems and certainly all is not as it should be.
Maybe it goes back to that church directory photo. Maybe like that drunk uncle or that brood of vipers, name-calling John the Baptist, I have to be willing to speak a truth no one wants spoken but everyone is relieved to hear because when proclaimed aloud the lies lose some of their power: All is not what it seems and much of what we spend our time and energy on cultivating and maintaining is, in the end, at the end, worthless.
The sweater didn’t fit. The expensive gift didn’t heal the relationship. Our mother didn’t notice the handmade table decorations. Our children grew bored with the new toy by lunchtime. The goat sent round the world didn’t alleviate poverty even if it absolved our guilty conscience to send it.
There I said it. Everyone already knew it. We don’t have to pretend anymore. In that is the beginning of freedom. Freedom to look at that old photo and recognize the beauty in it. Those were parents and siblings who cared for each other, the smiles as real as the bad perm and big hair. But hurt lurked there, too — wounds that would heal but leave scars. Blessings wrestled from which we still limp, weeping and gnashing of teeth are unavoidable. Every life has its apocalyptic seasons. But, unlike the zombie invasion, the Risen Christ, like the baby Jesus, comes to bring abundant life, not a living death. Therefore, we can speak the truth and not just look busy, but be busy, devoting ourselves to loving imperfect people, including ourselves, and working for justice no matter how slim justice’s chances appear, treasuring in our hearts all the beauty that persists despite and within undeniable suffering.
I am waiting for the risen Christ to return, victorious and filled with righteous indignation. I don’t presume he will tell me, “Well done good and faithful servant.” I am pretty sure he will be disappointed. There are days and times and actions and words I’d like to strike from my record. But because the risen Lord is also the baby Jesus who grows up and declares that he came for sinners, I think, instead, I will be honest — and wait with my head held high, for redemption to draw near.
