“There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it?”
These first words from the teaser trailer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens still ring in my ear. They echoed around the world in late November of 2014. Upon checking the YouTube video just this week, I discovered that this 88 second video has just short of 26 million views. An awakening indeed.
The season of Advent is upon us. The church calendar flips a page into a new year. A new lectionary cycle. It is time to prepare for the coming of our Lord! An awakening indeed.
The beginning of Advent often slips by us as we move out of the post-Thanksgiving haze of turkey and fifty percent off sales. These four weeks always seem to get caught in the rush from one season to the next, as the trees and lights come out and everyone is double checking their lists.
In the midst of these ever darkening days, on our march to the lights of Christmas, I return every year to the work of Alfred Delp SJ. Delp was a Jesuit Priest who was arrested and executed by the nazis for daring to dream of a different reality.
He and his co-conspirators imagined a world without the violence of the third reich and they paid for it with their lives. They knew of the power of God’s arrival in the incarnation and they used their lives to model Jesus’ way of love and healing.
In his writings and reflections from a prison cell, Delp captured with great clarity the meaning of Advent. When Christ arrives, everything changes. And we ought to take the time to think about what that means.
Father Delp wrote:
“Advent is a time for rousing. Human beings are shaken to the very depths, so that they may wake up to the truth of themselves. The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation, surrender… a shattering awakening; that is the necessary preliminary. Life only begins when the whole framework is shaken.”
Alfred Delp, SJ, The Prison Meditations of Alfred Delp, p. 17
“Life only begins…” Words from a prisoner whose fate was sealed. Whose days were numbered. What beginning could he possibly be imaging?
“… when the whole framework in shaken.” The whole framework of the world had been shaken in the wake of another war. The rise of fascism, growing secularism, and secular ultra-nationalism in Europe in the post great war years was viscerally noticeable, so much that Pope Pius instituted a new feast day in 1925. We know it today as the Reign of Christ, or Christ the King!
Advent is meant to be a rousing, a shaking. The authors of the lectionary made this clear in their choices. Apocalypses. The rupturing of the heavens. John shouting in the wilderness about repentance and fire. Mary’s Magnificat, which is a not-so-subtle allusion to the destruction of the current and all imperial orders. All of these ancient stories point to a breaking with business as usual.
In our current reality, these stories speak with a renewed clarity to those who are willing to listen. The rise of Christian nationalism and fascist tendencies by elected politicians. The pseudo-worship of a cultic leader. The growing economic divide. The immediate threat of climate crisis. All of these are enough to shaken anyone to the core.
And yet the stories are meant to inspire hope for sure times like these. They are meant to awaken and shake us into clear-eyed living and action.
Another word from Father Delp.
“The gospel for the fourth Sunday in Advent evokes history. It refers to the mighty who determine the structure of the small room in which the Light of the World will come into being, bringing salvation. In order to recognize that a moment of historical crisis is implied here, we must close these names with the memory of the part they played in history. From the imperial thrown to the holy of holies, the outlook was hopeless… Hopeless – that is the iron with which history often seeks to fetter healing hands, breaking the hearts of the enlightened few, and reducing them to trembling hesitancy or cheap silence or tired resignation.”
Alfred Delp, SJ, The Prison Meditations of Alfred Delp, p. 45
Hopeless is the goal of the status quo and the power brokers. Hopeless leads to lethargy and delusion. Hopeless leaves those who agitate for change exhausted and ultimately ineffective. Unless more join the movement. Unless more are awakened.
To word of Jesus amidst his final hours is “Stay Awake!” Amidst the darkness and late hour of Gethsemane Jesus shakes and rouses his disciples over and again, imploring them to keep watch with him as the world begins to turn.
Ched Myers the theologian/activist of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries sharing this reflection in his powerful book Binding of the Strongman:
“Mark calls the discipleship community to live in history with open eyes, to look deep into present events, beyond conflicting claims of those vying for power. They must search for and attack the very roots of violence and oppression that hold the human story hostage. The coming of the kingdom has nothing to do with triumphalism; it comes from below, in solidarity with the human family in its dark night of suffering. The world is Gethsemane, and we are called to ‘historical insomnia’ (Myers, Binding the Strongman, 353).”
“There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it?” Advent is here and it’s time wake up! To be shaken from the haziness and lethargy intentionally created by a system that knows that it only takes a little attention and some active love to loosen its grip on the ways things are.
We were created for moments such as these. We are empowered to live fully-awake. Right here and right now. The incarnation of Christ is on the horizon. What we celebrate at Christmas literally changed everything. But we’re not quite there yet.
Advent is here. Wake Up!
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