Three Years Later: Adventure is the True Meaning of Advent 


A reflection on the spiritual evolution of humanity, past, present, and cyber-future. 

Today was the First Sunday in Advent, which we celebrated at my church, Trinity Episcopal Church of St. Louis, MO. I had a really marvelous and uplifting experience there, and I want to report and reflect on this. Three years ago in 2005, just after I began blogging through iBlog software, I wrote a series of six reflections spaced throughout the season of Advent, which is constituted by the four Sundays before Christmas. I just went back an re-read these reflections, because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to unduly repeat something I had already said. And I AM quite pleased with the nature of my past thinking, which is reasonably articulate and quite representative of my current thinking. However, unlike Advent, 2005, which was in some sense a true spiritual journey for me, Advent 2008, much to my surprise, has just grabbed me and cuddled me like a baby. I never expected this. Let me tell you a little about it.

So let us enter into the realm of science fiction. Christianity is an earth religion, which like other earth religions, offers a view into the nature of humanity and humanity's relationship to what created it. Christianity also offers a path of evolution for humanity, a way that each human being can help something called the "Kingdom of God" to come into full being. In traditional Christianity, the Advent celebrates a season of anticipation: Mary, a virgin, gave birth to God in the human form of Jesus Christ, who died for the sins of humanity, who rose from the dead, and who will come a second time to establish God's kingdom on earth. What is perhaps less clear to people is that the earth religion, Christianity, is still in a state of evolution, a characteristic it shares with all other full-fledged earth religions. It seems clear to me that what all these religions, including Christianity, are evolving towards, is a single, unified outlook. In this future time, all human beings will regard each other as children of the same God, and will treat each other with the same loving, caring reverence that God's children ought to receive. In this future time, the resonance and harmony created by the mutual love and respect of people for each other will create a new plateau and new dimensions to human experience. Life on that lofty plateau and in those dimensions will be heavenly. The Kingdom of God which we anticipate in Advent is exactly life on that lofty, far-away plateau, life in those now shrouded, even hidden dimensions.

Clearly, what is here in December, 2008 is a miserable reflection of the Kingdom of God. Today, we are still crusading to kill others who do not agree with us, even as the Catholic Church has crusaded down through the ages, spilling into the Holocaust in the Twentieth Century. It is a miracle that cynicism can be staunched at all in the face of such an opposition to mutual love and respect. But this Advent, I will staunch my cynicism and enter into the New Advent-ure that I dimly perceive before me and my neighbors. I am not better than the least of my enemies, and they are legion. I am not better than my Christian high school friend who tirelessly campaigned to support Proposition 8 in California. I am not on a more preferred path to God than the Jews in my play-reading group. I am not more sensible than the muslim suicide bombing woman who blows herself up to kill two others. I am not on a better path than the Nigerian Archbishops in the Global South. If I deny that these people are beloved of God—just as they are—I am not taking my active role in bringing to this earth the Kingdom of God.

Today we read that famous passage from Mark's "Little Apocalypse" which is worth repeating here, because I am going to give my own metaphorical interpretation of its meaning.

Mark 13:24-37

24“But in those days, after that suffering,
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
25and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
26Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.
27Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
28“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.
29So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.
30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.
31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
32“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
33Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.
34It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.
35Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn,
36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.
37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

This passage, written nearly two millennia ago, for all its pre-scientific and earthy imagery, contains some remarkably prescient content. I don't think Mark had the intellectual or cultural tools to express the evolution of a cyberspace-augmented humanity, and yet a core truth is in here. Never mind that the clouds may turn out to be cyber-clouds, the angels may be bots, or that the slaves have been freed two centuries ago, or that the elect from the four corners of the earth may be gathered through on-line conferencing. Make no mistake, there will be wars and rumors of wars, and perhaps a meteor shower or two. Global warming will get worse before it gets better. Never mind that the Son of Man may be straight out of Childhood's End. Never mind that we may not even call it the "Kingdom of God." Our Future is Coming, our entry into those lofty and heavenly dimensions of siblingly love. We should stay awake. We should never fall asleep to the possibility that God is Love through Us. This is an Advent-ure that I can embrace and look forward to.

By the way, in case you might want to sample them, here are the 2005 reflections:

* My Heart Is A Stable
* Second Sunday in Advent
* To Tree Or Not To Tree, That Is The Question
* Who Is The King?
* In What Sense Did Jesus Die For Our Sins?
* The True Meaning of Advent 

Posted: Sun - November 30, 2008 at 06:34 PM          

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