AWAKE
…you know that he is near, at the very gates… And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake ~ Mark 34
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence… There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us…”
~ Isaiah 64.1-9
HOW MANY RELIGIONS have been conceived through self-important, self-righteous ambition? How many religious people have waved their praising arms at heaven when God seems to be vindicating their sense of purpose or at least isn’t too obviously exposing its ego boosting impulses? Have you ever screamed into the wind at God, “(M)ake your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!”, though deep inside you know full well that it’s your imagined enemies, not God’s, and the nations of your own troubled mind?
Advent is a time to tell the “old, old story”. We will meet Mary and the Angel once more, even sing her rebel song with her and watch her travel, like children in a Nativity, to Bethlehem, through the wild desert night. And we will sing carols by the crib and feel warm while we pray for the broken, the bombed out and the homeless ones. But let’s not just do our religion, eat our presents and open our turkeys. Let’s notice that it is a rebel song she sings and that her uncertain, rugged and ragged journey mirrors ours. Christ is coming. Not as a projection from history or fantasy. Not in a guided mind journey concealed in a Christmas cracker. Christ is coming on Christ’s terms. Let’s be still and be Christed open and may we be found AWAKE!
Tonnau Duw ('God's waves') Fr Tim Ardouin 