ADVENT HOPE – ALERT EXPECTATION

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”  (Hebrews 10:23)

Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.

And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it His way and in His time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling Him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God. "I pray to GOD… waiting for what He'll say and do. My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.”

-- Eugene H. Peterson in “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society”

#5234

STAY AWAKE

In [Mark 13], Jesus repeats a simple imperative three times in quick succession: "Keep awake!" For Jesus to repeat this so emphatically three times in a row implies that one of the great hazards of the faith journey is spiritual acquiescence, a kind of grogginess that dulls us to what is true, and truly important. Sleepiness of spirit means we miss out on what God is doing, and perhaps overlook the presence of Christ right in our midst. By simply falling asleep, spiritually speaking, we miss God, and miss out on what God is calling us to be and do.

The peril of spiritual stupor is real, and we see this theme repeated in scripture many times. The disciples who hiked to the mountaintop with Jesus almost missed the transfiguration because they were sleepy! One story tells about someone whom others assumed was dead, but Jesus says, "He's not dead; he's sleeping." In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night which the disciples knew would be Jesus' last among them, they fell asleep. Even after Jesus implored them to stay awake with Him, they nodded off. Scripture also records one poor follower who dozed during a sermon and fell out the window. (Let that be a warning to the people in the pews!). If it hadn't been for Mary and company on Easter morning, the disciples would have slept through the resurrection of Christ…

A dulling of spiritual insight causes us to see people as things, and to overlook how each is a child of God made in the image of God… If we're not careful, we become so distracted by things that do not matter, so driven by things that are of little account, or so tired and burned out and spiritually exhausted, that they stop being human to us. We lose sight of people, of purpose, of what matters most. "Keep awake," Jesus says. "Be alert." "Stay attentive!" Following Christ, staying awake with Him, requires a constant spiritual acuity, an attentiveness to see the coming of Christ, a preparedness of soul and character, a kind of spiritual attention. Stay awake.

-- U.M. Bishop Robert Schnase from his blog at www.fivepractices.org


#2278