It is the first Sunday of Advent and I am thinking about the Ordinary Time song Zion and Isaiah 52 the scripture on which it is based.

Awake, awake, Zion,
    clothe yourself with strength!
Put on your garments of splendor,
    Jerusalem, the holy city. (Is. 52:1)

The season of Advent comes in part as a call to wake up. (WAKE UP!). To wake up from the injustice that has become acceptable. To wake up from the sleep of the oppressed. To wake up from being mistreated and mistreating others. It is a call to wake up in preparation (advent) of the coming again of the Christ. To acknowledge and wake up to the pain of how things are and to the longing for how things are to be.

(....)

The other night at dinner with good friends we all answered the question of what our perfect day would be. One person’s perfect day included a meal with loved ones, including some who have died by suicide in the last year. On the perfect day, wrongs are made right. Death will lose its sting.

Advent is a time to affirm the belief that the wrongs will be made right and to prepare for that day.

(....) 

At the end of the week last week, a friend who does not identify as a Christian but knows that I do wished me “a happy holiday” and asked if the time of coming up to Christmas was a highlight for my family because of my faith. In responding I told him that while we enjoy Christmas and all the cultural things we do in this season, for me the season is marked not by remembering but by looking forward to the return of the Christ and the time when all will be made right, all wars will cease, all prisoners will be freed and there will be no more suffering (Rev. 21/Is. 65). He had never heard this concept before, and in speaking it aloud it struck me both how radical this hope is, how ridiculous it sounds to my middle-aged, tired ears that are full of the news of the world.  

Climate crisis. 
Thousands dead from drug overdose  (just in the province where I live) 
War between Palestine and Israel (that is so complex that I don’t even know how to label it without the possibility of unintentionally making a political misstep) 
War in Ukraine (that has been bumped off the charts because of the newer conflict)  
50 million people in situations of modern slavery on any given day

And on, and on…

The hope that these wrongs (and all wrongs) will be made right is a hope that I fall asleep to. To carry this hope, to prepare for its coming, is to live in the painful reality of what is and what is to come. I need the alarm bell of Isaiah (WAKE UP!) to remind me to break from my half-asleep living, to long for the advent of the Christ to come to this world and to make all things right, and in the meantime to turn my efforts towards bringing this world closer to the kingdom of heaven that I long for.

Awake, awake, Zion ….

(....)

This first Sunday of Advent 2023 I am hearing the voice from long ago (WAKE UP!). I hear it aimed at me. “Awake, awake, Peter!” I find myself looking at my life and where I have fallen asleep, imagining how I can wake up and shift from complicit to resisting. I find myself longing for the advent of Christ, and the time when all will be made new.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Peter, for Ordinary Time

Peter Gabriel’s latest song has some advent longing in it as well…