The Second Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 10, 2023

Advent is a season of divine initiative. God actively involves Godself in the world to realize the moral and spiritual arcs of history, the arc of Shalom.  God’s initiative calls for our response.  God’s love is, as David Griffin and John Cobb say, “creative-responsive.” The call of God, revealed in provocative possibilities, seeks our response, and in response to us God calls again and the call and response goes on forever, drawing us closer or, sadly, further away from God’s vision. There is comfort and hope in Advent and also the call to agency and adventure.

In the language of spiritual poetry, Isaiah describes a new age in which the nation and earth shall be renewed. A broken nation will be healed, a lost nation will be found, a dispirited land will be renewed. This is Judah, and it is also our nation. God will be tangibly experienced once more as the Shepherd of Becoming, luring humankind and nature toward wholeness. What happens among humans and their institutions shapes the non-human world.  In the new age, “heaven and nature sing” and everyone will experience God’s glory.  We are far from this time, obviously, and have the potential to render our planet uninhabitable. Many leaders of our nation choose hate and division, and denial of climate change, intentionally putting future generations at risk.  Yet, there is a way through the wilderness, a way where we imagined no way, for those who align themselves with God’s vision.  God calls us beyond privilege and prejudice to world loyalty.

Isaiah asserts that we are mortals, all flesh is grass, yet God’s presence, God’s word of life, endures forever.  Our mortality calls forth God’s shepherding care.  God will supply our deepest needs as we seek to become citizens of a new world. Recognizing our mortality, we seize the day.  Depending on God’s Energy of Life and Wisdom, we become agents of earth-building. Mortality is not debilitating but a call for us to use each moment wisely in the 21^st century “time of our lives.”

The Psalm affirms that God’s salvation is at hand for those who fear God.  “Fear,” in this passage, means “awe” or the recognition of God’s Universality and our mortality. What the philosopher Schleiermacher calls our “absolute dependence on God.”  Knowing that everything depends on God energizes rather than disempowers.  Trusting God, we can act lovingly and boldly to transform the world.

The words of 2 Peter, proclaim that our mortality – and the reality that the “day of the Lord” may come as a “thief in the night” – challenges us to live worthy of God’s grace lives of holiness and godliness.  Each day is a gift and each moment is a gift.  Don’t be caught napping, or wantonly abusing the gift of life.  Being ready to “meet your Maker” or the “day of the Lord” is an invitation to live gracefully and thankfully.  To use our gifts – the gift of life and talent – to the fullest extent. Each moment of experience is an opportunity to align with God’s way, to embody God’s vision, and enact God’s vision in our world.  The words of 2 Peter are a call to activism, not passivity.  They are a call to make each day sacred. Unaware of the extent of our lives, let us live with love and courage.

Mark 1 describes the coming of John the Baptist.  John is a wilderness character who calls us to prepare for God.  Do you recall the scene from Godspell in which the song “Prepare Ye” echoes through city streets and people drop everything to follow God’s way.  They exuberantly jump in a fountain and splash themselves with the waters of baptism. The joyfulness of God’s realm.  Spiritually de-cluttering opens us to new and creative energy – to joy and delight in God’s realm.

We can prepare for the joy of Advent and the Christmas to come by focusing on what is truly important, by being attentive to God’s movements in our lives, and seeking to bring God’s realm to our world.

Advent embraces the fullness of the spiritual journey – wokeness, readiness, sacrifice and simplicity, anticipation, and hope. Beyond our personal religious commitment is partnership lived out on holy communities in a Holy Adventure as God’s companions in healing the world.

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Bruce Epperly is a pastor, professor, spiritual guide, and author of over seventy books, including JESUS – MYSTIC, HEALER, AND PROPHET; THE ELEPHANT IS RUNNING: PROCESS AND OPEN AND RELATIONAL THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM; PROPHETIC HEALING: HOWARD THURMAN’S VISION OF CONTEMPLATIVE ACTIVISM; MYSTIC’S IN ACTION: TWELVE SAINTS FOR TODAY; WALKING WITH SAINT FRANCIS: FROM PRIVILEGE TO ACTIVISM; MESSY INCARNATION: MEDITATIONS ON PROCESS CHRISTOLOGY, FROM COSMOS TO CRADLE: MEDITATIONS ON THE INCARNATION, and THE PROPHET AMOS SPEAKS TO AMERICA.  His most recent books are PROCESS THEOLOGY AND THE REVIVAL WE NEED, TAKING A WALK WITH WHITEHEAD: MEDITATIONS WITH PROCESS-RELATIONAL THEOLOGY, and SIMPLICITY, SPIRITUALITY AND SERVICE: THE TIMELESS WISDOM OF FRANCIS, CLARE, AND BONAVENTURE. He can be reached at drbruceepperly@gmail.com.