I can still hear my mother’s voice telling me that 5 AM has come and gone, and that those on my paper route are waiting to read the news of the morning. Once she bought me a wind-up LOUD alarm clock; and after a few non-responsive mornings, she would set it in an aluminum pie-pan… Scriptures for this First Weekend in Advent are something like this. Prophets and evangelists alike are screaming at a dozing world still snuggling under the covers of complacency and acedia (the devil of the noon-day sun). The Good News is that the coming day isn’t all that bad, indeed, it’s very good for those who claim the morning.
We begin with the words of ISAIAH of Jerusalem, 2:1-5: “In days to come…many peoples will come to the mountain of the Lord…that [God] may teach us [God’s] ways and that we may walk in [God’s] paths.” Unencumbered by the Past, pilgrims will be able to ascend to God’s Glory. Unblinded by the Present, these will see and report new horizons. God’s presence and direction will become more compelling. “The text does not scold or admonish; it lifts a gleaming promise of what God will do in days to come.” (Paul Simpson Duke in FEASTING on the WORD, A 1:7) These are the first words heard by the Church at this, the beginning of a new cycle/year.
Paul says to the ROMANS (13:11-14), “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” We who tread the dawn are those who continue to expect God’s glorious redemption of the shadows, even the ones at our elbows.
We’ll be following MATTHEW during this year; and he begins at the end of the Gospel, in the teachings of the mature Jesus (24:36-44). He says that no one–even he–knows when the Great Plan will be completed, so be ready. Disciples are encouraged to get their affairs in order, because the bus may be loading at the platform even as we speak. I was once given a bookmark with the slogan, “Be alert. The world needs more lerts.”
Although I grew to hate my seven years as a morning-paper boy, I look back on those chilly mornings as a learning experience for the sunrise. Perhaps they spoiled for me any residual joys of the early riser, yet once I was awake in the dark I recognized a certainty of God’s order. With Annie I could sing, “Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I love you, Tomorrow, you’re only a day away!”
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
I record the expressed Presence of God as presented by witnesses every Tuesday–please pray for/with me during these days of anticipation.
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