Advent, Expectations, and Hope

When Jesus was born, his Jewish peers were distraught. Nobody alive at the time of his birth knew anything other than Roman occupation. A revolt of sorts in their past only led to greater tyranny. Yet, their origin stories reminded them of a time when they were enslaved in far faraway Egypt and God rescued them. Could God do it again after all these hundreds of years? It seemed that they were due for such a deliverance. So, they waited. And waited. And waited. And hoped.

A different sort of virus was taking hold – Apocalyptic Fever was catching quickly all around. And it was lethal for those who got a bad case of it. It would lead ordinary, everyday people to revolt against the Roman Empire. Every time it happened, they lost their lives as well as varying numbers of innocents who were dragged into it. The only way they could imagine God saving the day was violence, so that’s what they hoped for, dreamt of, and prepared for. What they hoped for, and perhaps more importantly the means they assumed would lead to the realization of their hopes, powerfully shaped their imagination and vision. They hoped for a peace brought on by a violent overthrow, so they trained for battle, turning their plowshares into swords, their pruning hooks into spears. It was the only way they could imagine.

We see a glimpse of this thinking in the Gospel reading today that will be read by hundreds of millions of people around the world today. The gist of the words put on Jesus’ lips was to remain ready for what God is going to do. The day of God’s movement could happen at any moment. While the stories of Jesus circulated for decades before Matthew’s Gospel was finalized, the finished product undoubtedly was impacted by the experiences of Jesus followers, including the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. It was the final blow to Jewish dreams of gaining their homeland though violence. Their only hope became an inbreaking of the power of God like the story of Noah and the ark. “God, supernaturally rescue us!” was their prayer of hope that shaped their vision.

Yet that’s not the story of Jesus’ origin, really. The birth narratives of Jesus do not include references to violence, but rather a different sort of reversal by a different route. Joseph and Mary could not be humbler folk – they represented the bottom rung of society. Elizabeth and Zechariah (relatives of Mary) weren’t any different, except that they were known for their faithfulness to God. The fact that Mary visited Elizabeth tells us that the news of her pregnancy was not welcome but more likely scorned – this is not how a holy god would go about redeeming people, right? The place Jesus was born was also a sign of terrible poverty and shame, especially given the hospitality ethic that reigned supreme in that part of the world. Shepherds who heard the angelic birth announcement were working the graveyard shift representing the fact that they, like Joseph, were insignificant socially. Eventually the Wise Men would enter the picture, but their expectations had to be modified as well.

Jesus is remembered as mentioning Noah – the Jewish Flood myth competing with all the other Flood myths of seemingly every culture everywhere. Playing along with the story, Noah would have seemed crazy preparing for a flood requiring such scale of preparation. When the flood waters came, however, it took people by surprise, taking some lives while leaving others. Even in our day of weather forecasting, some victims of hurricanes are surprised somehow and lose their lives. Noah was responsive to a crazy notion and his life – and the lives of his family and animals – were spared. It was his responsiveness to God’s movement that made the difference.

Nothing about Jesus’ birth narratives suggest that the hopes of the Apocalyptic dreams would be fulfilled in the way expected – with violence. Everything in the stories speaks of the opposite – God is going to do something in highly unexpected ways, not with military strength and power, but something much different. The humblest of people become the heroines and heroes. The Way of nonviolence is what sets Jesus apart, not the violence of the Zealots all around. Even his death would follow suit, instructing his followers how to die in the Way of the Spirit of God.

As we begin our journey to Bethlehem’s manger, we are called by those who gave us this story to examine our dreams of how God may be at work in our world to bring about shalom as God always has. Could it be that our dreams are so far off as to cause us to miss what God is doing? Knowing that God invited “nobodies” to play key roles doing things that nobody would even notice, yet actions that led to great change, perhaps we should follow suit and keep our eyes and ears and hearts and minds open to a different invitation than we might otherwise expect. An invitation to bring shalom not with violence, but with shalom itself. Toward shalom with shalom. Who knows? Maybe our saying yes could lead to Christ being born in a new way for our time, bring the same healing hope, peace, joy and love that Christ always has. Maybe we “nobodies” may be the heroes we’ve been waiting for to make the difference we long to see in the world. We are mixed bags, aren’t we? Mixed motives every day. Some days we really live into our highest aspirations, living by and in the flow of the Spirit. Other days we fulfill the prophet words of Proverbs: like a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool to his folly. I imagine the nobodies of the birth narratives had their dog days. Yet we remember them, and the world is better because they lived significantly into the flow God was inviting them into. May it be so for us.