Dr. Gail O’Day, writes that “[Advent is a season in which time is measured not linearly as in the rest of the world, but cyclically as the church both re-imagines] God’s already accomplished in-breaking into the world in the incarnation (Jesus), and the not yet complete triumph of God’s eschatalogical age (return of Christ). From the beginning of its practice in 5th century Europe, Advent had a dual focus and purpose - to prepare joyfully for the first coming of the incarnate Lord and to prepare penitently for the second coming and God’s impending judgement. To “prepare the way of the Lord” simultaneously, then, attends to these two dimensions of God’s entry into the world.”
“The connection between time and story”, writes O’Day, “is definitional for the liturgical year. The movement of time enacts the story of salvation history. Liturgical time and story move cyclically, rather than linearly allowing the church to annually reimagine its life in relationship to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The church does not calculate its liturgical life in terms of the accumulated passing of days, nor as a series of anniversaries of key events in our past…”
but with the anticipated birth, God incarnate in the baby Jesus, the life and work of Christ, the prophetic witness to the anticipated death of Christ, and the promise of the age to come in the return & eternal reign of Christ… each year, the narrative is re-introduced, and we are invited to live into both the present power of each season’s testimony, as well as the reality of the future outcomes that the present is leading us towards, the ultimate reign of Christ, the eschatalogical vision of Advent.
Scottish Theologian William Barclay once said that “There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”
This Advent Season we are invited to “discover” or “re-discover” why! The Mark 24 text has traditionally been interpreted as a “preparation” text, getting ready for Jesus, anticipating what’s next, preparing the house, the meal, the tree, the yard, the lights, the presents, even the Advent Calendar encourages us to move from one day to the next…looking to the future as an ultimate reality for redemption and salvation.
I think, however, rather than being fixated on the anticipation of what is to come, on time’s passing we are invited to discover a new way of orienting time, and ourselves to the passing of such time. Perhaps preparing joyfully for the first coming of the incarnate Lord and penitently for the second coming means taking a step outside of our linear, finite experiences and finding the places in our lives where time stands still: when laughter and play, and the joyous making of moments are as palpable as our hearts beating, one beat after the other… tic toc, tic toc… O’Day says, “Advent resets the church’s clock, and invites us to participate in this understanding of time which is completely contrary to the contemporary notion that measures time and achievement by what is accomplished and completed” rathern than by what simply unfolds.
BBC News did a story on Caesium back in October that was all about the passage of time, and the evolution of timekeeping in civilized society and the progressive moves towards the need to synchronize and measure time. The findings indicate that In 1967, the measurement of “time” as we know it dramatically shifted. In that year, the official international standard second was redefined based on replacing the element used in the measurement of time- or atomic clocks, from quartz to caesium. Thus, caesium is the chemical element that has redefined time itself...in the modern world… “The truth is that, until about 175 years ago, it was the sun that defined time. Wherever you were, high noon was high noon, and on a clear day a quick glance up into the sky or down at a sundial told you everything you needed to know.” Time was measured cyclically as in the natural progression from darkness to light, to darkness again.
But, as the railway was becoming a regular part of an advancing society, keeping railway and international time, was becoming more and more a necessity- to keeping trains on schedule and literally avoiding train wrecks… so as is the case with most technological advancements we took “time” into our own hands , and re-oriented ourselves to time that could be measured, all the way down to a millionth of a second.
Before the use of Caesium in clocks satellite navigation was impossible. GPS satellites carry synchronised caesium clocks that enable them collectively to triangulate your position and work out where on earth you are at any given time. What would we do without GPS satellite? Hmmm, perhaps be anonymous for 30 minutes out of our days? Take a walk without google, twitter, your mother knowing where you are at all times? Find that our moments are oriented by experiences rather than the minute hand on a clock?
Palestinian American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye shares a poem she calls Gate A-4 which beautifully illustrates this kind of time re-orientation that I hope we will each consider.
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.” Well— one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her . What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. “Shu-dow-a, shu-bid-uck, habibti? Stani schway, min fadlick, shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies— little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts— from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single traveler declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo— we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
Then the airline broke out free apple juice and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now we were holding hands— had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate— once the crying of confusion stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”
Friends, we are all too ready to take time into our own hands, to look through the people around us, over and under the opportunities before us to be still, to sit beside someone, to buy someone’s lunch- someone who wouldn’t eat otherwise, to put our phones and ipads down, to share a cookie, to simply chat or pass the time with a friend, instead we work incessantly towards perfection and precision, towards limitless discoveries and solutions that always lead to finite results. Even with our most advanced scientists working in the field of time measurement, we find that caesium too, is finite, and unable to fully capture the passage of time without error. Maybe the Advent message is not about counting down the days to Christmas or Epiphany, or even managing to come to church every Sunday this season? Perhaps the heart of what we need to hear is exactly what is written on the page:
But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, writes Mark, not even heaven’s angels, not even the son. Only God knows.
This Advent season we are invited to re-imagine ourselves as part of this life-giving narrative, to see our stories within the broader story of HOPE and lift it up for others to see… to look up at the sun and remember who we are and upon whose ground we stand…
Understanding that this story is, in fact, laden with labor pangs, and unexpected interruptions, with well charted plans gone ary, with showing up late, and staying too long, with missed opportunities and squabbled moments, and yes with train wrecks here and there, with hurry and haste, with luls and isolation, with joys too many to count and sorrows that are immeasurable. But This story is our story, the story our God is not afraid to enter into- time and time again, to make a home within, to create room for love to grow and forgiveness to be born anew. This story is never complete, but always beginning again, never finite, yet fully imagined for us. This story is the most mysterious and yet familiar to those of us who have journeyed this path together, to those of us whom have taken different routes, but time and time again find ourselves coming back together, for those of us who have fallen down along the way, and for those of us who have dared to stand up again. Today, I urge you to claim your place in the story, to walk with sun in your periphery, to gaze up at the moon, to take notice of the stars falling from the sky, to see your own existence in each new leaf that is birthed upon the fig tree.
When “‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” May it be so, this day and every day! Amen. 
