November 28, 2010
(First Sunday of Advent)
(From The Lectionary Page)
Seeing Double
Have you ever been in a place that is completely dark - no light whatsoever? I remember going with my high school biology class to Tom and Cathy Aley’s Tumbling Creek Cave, down in Taney County, MO. They took us way down into this cave, hundreds of yards from any natural light. At one point, they had us turn off our lights, and asked us to remain perfectly quiet for one minute. The absence of light and sound was completely disorienting. The darkness was so deep, that it felt, less like the absence of light, than a like a physical presence, a presence that invades your mind with confusion and fear. I found myself gripping my flashlight, keenly aware that, were I alone down there, it would be my only hope of finding my way back to the light of day.
Today we begin our walk through the season of Advent. Advent has
long been understood on numerous levels as a kind of darkness from which
Christ, the light, emerges. During this time we live with the voice
of the prophet Isaiah, who calls us
- to name this darkness,
- to know that we are in its midst,
- and to understand that it has
a disorienting effect on us.
He reminds us that there is a light somewhere in this darkness, and that
the tool by which we are able to keep that light before us, is a sort of
double vision.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that, "The test of a first-rate intelligence, is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should,” he said, “be able to see that things are hopeless, and yet be determined to make them otherwise."[1] This is not unrelated to what Isaiah is asking of us on this first Sunday of Advent.
The darkness of our own time could be described with endless variety, but could perhaps be summarized like this: We believe that God is very much present, but so much of what we see every day of our lives speaks more clearly of God’s absence. Our faith sometimes feels like the string that holds these two realities together, but it so often feels stretched to its limit. At particularly grim moments this tension feels as if it might either break, or tear us apart. As we know of any sort of darkness, it has the effect of removing our ability to see anything but itself.
Isaiah effectively says that, without letting go of this darkness, we have to focus on something else at the same time. The vision of God’s future for humanity has to remain before us. This future is not presented here as something simply to be hoped for, but rather as something that will be – period. This is what God has in store, and it will happen.
We learn from Isaiah’s vision that this future consists in two things:
- first, that God will be
sought after by all, and he will be known by all.
- And second, that our future
is one of peace – not a peace that we achieve, but that God achieves.
This is not a moral plea for Israel to destroy their swords. It is
a theological claim, that in God’s future, they simply won’t be needed.
God will issue justice, and the result of this justice will be the end of
want, and thereby the end of war.
And so it is, that this justice, issuing from God, through the willing participation of God’s people, will lead to peace. And this in turn, will draw people to God. They will want to participate in what they see happening among God’s people.
But Isaiah does not stop with showing us God’s plans for the future of humanity. He shares with us what God’s future means to us right here and now. “Come,” he says, “let us walk in the light of the Lord.” The vision of God’s future for the world lights the present with meaning. Seeing double in this way enables us to see clearly any darkness that may come before us, but not in such a way that we lose sight, of the future that God is bringing about. “Confidence that the future belongs to God gives us hope in the present.”[2] Without this confidence, we have only singular vision. And like seeing with only one eye, it is our perception of depth that suffers. Mark Twain has said that, “You can’t depend on your eyes, when your imagination is out of focus.” And it is a sense of imagination that seems to be required to hold Isaiah’s vision of God’s future with us as we walk the paths of our lives.
“In the end, what Isaiah offers is…an invitation to live toward that day. However hard it may be to believe that a new and longed-for reality will take hold some day, there is power in walking in God’s light now, one step at a time…The future belongs to God, but the first step toward that future, belongs to those who have glimpsed God’s light, and are willing to trust that enough light lies ahead.”[3]
I wish you all a blessed and holy Advent season, as we walk together in God’s light, anticipating His incarnate presence among us.
[1] F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Crack-Up
(New York: New Directions Publishing, 1931 – 1933)
[2] Birch, Bruce R. From “Isaiah 2: 1 – 5:
An Exegetical Perspective.” Feasting on the Word, Year A Vol.
1 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010) p. 3
[3] Duke, Stacey Simpson. “Isaiah 2: 1 – 5:
A Pastoral Perspective.” Feasting on the Word, Year A Vol. 1
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010) p. 6
