The Third Sunday of Advent

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Those of you who are of a certain age may remember one of my all-time favorite authors, Loren Eisley. For those who have not read him, he was an anthropologist, a naturalist, scholar, poet, teacher, and a wonderful storyteller. He is most remembered for his books The Immense Journey and The Unexpected Universe.

A fundamental learning from nature for him was: What happens is not always what we expect. Pretty simple, right? But hard for humans to remember. He writes that we thought we had wrapped up the universe in a neat package of law and order. Scientists understood most things, and they were rational and dependable. The universe was governed by Law, not by chance, and the Law was unchangeable, immutable.

He wrote, in the 1960’s, that we were beginning to discover surprises in the universe, things we had not expected, things we could not possibly have foreseen. (What would Eisley be saying, do you think, if  he knew about today’s New Physics and such things as Quantum Theory, and Chaos theory, and the ultimate Theory of Everything).

There is something about our universe, our life, he says, “that slips through the fingers of the mind.” There is something beyond the rational, the thinkable, that points toward the unexpected, to an unforeseeable future. He was saying to scientists, and to all of us, “don't be to sure; keep looking, but don’t be too sure; we don't know exactly what is going to happen.” Eisley quotes Heraclitus, "If you do not expect it, you will not find the unexpected, for it is hard to find and difficult."

Was there ever a better theme for Advent than that? "Come thou long expected Jesus..." Was anyone more expected than the Messiah? A whole nation, a whole people were expecting him. They had been waiting for hundreds of years for his coming.

They were looking everywhere for him. And every time that they saw someone like John the Baptist they wondered whether he might be the One, the Messiah. The hope of his coming kept them going through the humiliation and the indignity of their exile and then living as a conquered people under the Babylonians and then the Romans. They certainly did expect a Messiah.

And yet when he did come, they didn't know it because he wasn't the Messiah they were expecting. Not even John the Baptist recognized him. They expected him to come with a fanfare, to cause a big stir. But he didn't. He came quietly. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, “probably no child born into the world that day seemed to have poorer prospects than did Christ.”

Some few did recognize him - but a precious few. Most people expected a Messiah who would liberate them from Rome. He didn't. He liberated them from sin and guilt. They expected a Messiah who would dazzle them with special feats. He didn't. He healed the sick, fed the hungry and ministered to people according to their need.

They expected a Messiah who would reaffirm the Law; instead he talked about love.

They expected a Messiah who would make life easier: reduce the taxes, increase employment, bring down prices. He didn't. He talked about crosses, not crowns. He talked about changing oneself, as a first step in changing the situation in which one lives.

They expected a Messiah who would be theirs alone. He wasn't. He came for all. But most of all they expected a Messiah who would be a smashing success. He wasn't.

People just weren't ready for this unexpected Christ. The Scholars of the Jesus Seminar give this warning in their introduction to The Five Gospels: "Beware of finding a Jesus entirely congenial to you"

Now we approach another Christmas, the middle of another season of Advent... a season of preparing and expecting. We know that Christmas will come. The calendar always, eventually, gets around to December 25th, and if we are patient we will enjoy another Christmas celebration. We know that.

And we also know that Christ will come -- and instinctively, we look for him to come in certain ways, and we feel certain he will come in just that way. He will break through, here and there, the crust of our fierce and competitive world. He will soften a hard heart here and there. He will heal an open wound. Miracle of miracles, he will be the occasion for the exchange of love and affectionate greetings and gifts.

But there is also the sense that he is always the unexpected Christ. We expect him to come in the usual place, like in Church. But for many of us, he will come in the street or an office or a factory or a laboratory or the unemployment office or the playing field or in the market or classroom. We expect him to come in the music of the carols we sing and have loved all our lives. He will, but for many others he will come through the driving beat of a rock band or in the rhyming of a rap song.

We expect him to come in our liturgy. He will. But he will also come to those who don't worship at all, ever. We expect him to come in the structure of our comfortable lives. He will. But he will also come to some little shed far removed from our lives which has no comfort at all.

Just as he comes from the mud of a stable, he comes to muddy the  waters of our expectations, almost as if he were saying, “When I come, I come as I am. If you don't expect me, you will not find me. If you do expect me, don't be surprised if I am not the one you expected.”

So who is it you expect this Advent? Do you expect this one or another? “Is he the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” We join with the crowd around Jesus to hear his answer. And we hear words of promise, words that hold the past and the future together in a present hope: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

So are you waiting for this Messiah, the One who will be the sign of God's mercy and steadfastness and loving-kindness and salvation; or for some other one? Where would we find such a One? Perhaps sitting next to you, or across the living room or in the next office or across the sales counter or just around the next corner. What do you expect?

The kingdom is present, Jesus is present whenever there is witness and proclamation, healing and reconciliation, feeding and housing, holding and caring offered by those who live in his hope. We are witnesses to this kingdom and to this Christ. We need to bring the Good News of this Christ; we need to make this Messiah known.

Please pray with me. Sharpen our minds, 0 Lord, humble our spirits, and open our hearts to take in the love that once became flesh, that comes among us again and again. Help us, not only, to take him in, but to let others see him in us. We ask in his name, by his power, and for his sake; for he is the one who comes to set us free. Amen.