Advent 2011: Going and Coming

Another day, another death in the church family. That makes six members of the church that I’ve buried in my nearly three years as the Rector, not to mention the six friends and family of parishioners that I’ve helped bury. Another day, another going.

The goings continue to occupy our dreams, and particularly at this time of year, our conscious memories. I admit that one of my favorite songs at this time of the year is the Pretenders’ 2,000 Miles.

And while Chrissie Hynde probably didn’t mean this, I can’t help but associate her lyric, “under the purple sky,” with this liturgical season of Advent, when our church is covered with purple. “Advent” is Latin for “coming.” It is the season in which Jesus is coming, and we look forward to that coming.

But he isn’t here yet. And we might be forgiven for asking, “Am I coming or going? Do the goings of my life overwhelm the comings?” It’s ok to ask those questions in Advent. Jesus came to a world broken by too many goings. And all of us feel burdened by the goings in our lives.

Later this month, we’ll have our “Blue Christmas” prayer service, where we give ourselves a quiet place of candlelight to look 2,000 miles ahead and see the those gone from them, and perhaps begin to glimpse the one coming toward us.

And He is coming, as he came 2,000 years ago; and taught, healed, died, and rose again. There were hundreds of witnesses to his resurrected state. Many of them would later die rather than renounce their eyewitness testimony. That testimony has been handed down from generation to generation (in Latin, tradition, from which we get “tradition”).

I trust the tradition, that the Word of God, which made the universe, became human and lived among us. I have seen the goings, too many for our church family. I also see the comings, like a new family whose daughter I will baptize on the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, on Sunday, January 1^st.

With all my heart, I pray that this Advent, as we see our goings from 2,000 miles, so shall we glimpse the coming as well, in our hearts, in our church and our world.