This is the first of what will be a series of daily posts for the season of Advent. The theme each day will be based on the 2019 Advent Photo-a-Day Challenge by Rethink Church. Learn more at http://www.rethinkchurch.org.
I encourage you to post your own reflections on social media with the tag #RethinkChurch. You may share whatever each day’s word inspires in you. And don’t worry…there’s no way to fail this challenge. There is only this grace-full invitation to spend just a few moments each day pausing and reflecting during this Advent season. Peace…
AWAKE
There’s a camp song I often pull out when I have the opportunity to lead Sunday School music:
I’m alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic.
I’m alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic.
I’m alive, awake, alert.
I’m alert, awake, alive.
I’m alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic.
(If you know this song, I apologize if it is now stuck in your head. Good luck removing it!)
When I sing this song with Sunday School students, we sing with full body actions. We wake up our bodies and our voices as we sing. Most often, I choose to sing this song when I’m actually feeling anything but alive, awake, alert and enthusiastic. I sing the song to convince myself that I’m actually not nearly as tired and apathetic as I feel. I sing the song…and most days I actually become what I’m singing. The song ends with inevitable laughter, after speeding up more and more with each repetition, and I am alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic!
In the gospel reading assigned for this day (Matthew 24:36-44), Jesus tells his disciples: Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. And Paul, in his letter to the Romans, writes: you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.
I find it ironic that the season that invites me to stay awake is the very season in which I most want to sleep. The season that invites me to wake up is the season in which I am most likely to hit the snooze button. The long, cold nights of December do not inspire me to get up and get moving.
And it’s not just that it’s December. It’s not just the cold and the dark. It’s the old grief this time of year. It’s the promise of new life buried under snow. It’s the reality that is so far from the Hallmark portrait. It’s the awareness of suffering and injustice, near and far.
I need the Advent invitation to wake up, to live in hope, to be alert to God’s redeeming presence, to enthusiastically sing with Mary of a world turned upside down by the advent of our God.
So here. To get the previous song out of your head, click on this link https://www.youtube.com/.
Sing Mary’s song. Sing it with your congregation, with your neighbors, with your family and friends. Sing it until you believe it. Sing it until all the sleep is rubbed from your eyes and you can see God alive and at work in the world around you.
The world is about to turn.
Amen.