Journey's Weekly Homilies
December 1, 2002
1st Sunday of Advent, Year B
"Vigil: Christmas"
Homily by Sam
Isaiah 63:16b-17,19;64:2b-7
I Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:33-37
Tonight we have sung a prayer that Emanuel will come to ransom us
who live in lonely exile. With this song we plunge into the
darkness of Advent, a time of restless longing, hopeful waiting,
and joyous preparation described in our three readings. It
is a time of vigil, for the Gospel of Mark reminds us:
"WATCH".
Today I want to speak to these three things: VIGIL, THE GOSPEL OF
MARK, and EMANUEL.
It is a profoundly human endeavor to keep the vigil, to watch
through the night. Many of us have pulled
"all-nighters" to prepare for an exam. Many of us
have tossed and turned through the night, worrying about a loved
one, or wondering about what might befall us the next day.
Ancient people kept watch through the night, shepherds with their
sheep and desert nomads waiting to begin the day's journey.
Early poets wrote psalms to mark the hours of the nighttime vigil.
And the writer of today's Gospel tells of an eventful night in the
Garden of Gethsemane.
Jews began their Sabbath activities at sundown on the eve of the
Sabbath and the first followers of Jesus did the same. The
book of Acts describes a nightlong service of prayer, preaching,
and breaking bread. Eventually early Christians restricted
the vigil to Easter observance.
Our Christmas vigil was added centuries later. It emerged
from the Greek festival of Epiphany which celebrated the coming of
Jesus into the world. Epiphany took place in the middle of
the winter. It incorporated the imagery of Jewish and pagan
festivals which expressed longing for the return of light and
fertility to the earth. Hannukah, the Jewish festival of
lights is still held at this time. Today we light candles
against the darkness and begin a year of the Gospel of Mark.
We join Mark at an unusual time, not the beginning of the Gospel
but the events leading up to the passion and death of Jesus, which
is the main event of the Gospel. I suppose the organizers of
the lectionary thought that waiting and preparation are
appropriate to Christmas as well as Easter. Christmas is
problematic in this liturgical year because, well, Mark doesn't
say anything about the birth of Jesus. This Gospel begins
with baptism.
The Gospel of Mark was written as dramatic poetry to be recited
from memory in its entirety during the nightlong Christian
gatherings.
Mark's community was besieged by three hostile forces, all of
which demanded loyalty from the followers of Jesus.
Palestine was the breadbasket of the Empire. The Romans
controlled it through military might and local alliances.
The high priests and their minions collaborated with the Romans
and imposed their own oppressive burden of regulations and taxes.
Armed Jewish nationalists had seized the temple by force and
wanted to expel the Romans from the region.
Mark was probably written at a time when the Romans had swept
through upper Galilee where Mark's community lived. At the
time of the Gospel Roman legions were poised to destroy the temple
and all of Jerusalem to stamp out the rebellion once and for all,
and end the nation as it had existed before. Today's Gospel
tells the disciples and us to keep vigil through the gathering
darkness, to learn from Jesus how to respond to oppressive power.
In today's reading we are instructed to stay awake through the
four hours of the nightwatch: evening, midnight, cockcrow,
and dawn. In the evening Jesus will pray in the Garden of
Gesthemene, pledging himself to God's will. At midnight he
will refuse to take up arms against those who have come to arrest
him. At cockcrow Peter will break faith. At dawn Jesus
will face down his
accusers armed with truth rather than weapons.
Today Mark concludes "a sermon on revolutionary
patience" in the midst of violence and oppression. We
are instructed to follow the example of Jesus who will break the
system of domination rather than perpetuate it through violent
resistance. Instead we must prepare for a new way that will
be revealed in this darkness. Rather than replace one form
of violence with another God will
uproot every form of oppression which plagues our world. To
prepare the way of our God we must, like Jesus be willing to
suffer violence rather than inflict violence on others. We
must, as Martin Luther King said, meet physical force with soul
force.
Rosa Parks was a follower of Jesus who read the Gospel of mark.
Most of us new that she refused to move to the back of the bus in
Montgomery, Alabama. Most of us know how her acceptance of
jail rather than submission sparked an nonviolent revolution in
race relations.
However few of us know that Rosa Parks had prepared carefully for
this moment through her work with the civil rights community.
She had read the scripture, reflected on the injustice of her
times, and trained for action through assertive nonviolence.
She tempered her outrage with a thorough commitment to actions of
justice and love. And she waited for the right time to make
her stand.
As followers of Jesus we keep another kind of vigil today.
Our country is preparing for a massive war and occupation of
another sovereign country. We are told once again that we
must make war in order to preserve peace. Yet every war we
have fought has led not to peace but to the rise of another tyrant
who must be dispelled through greater force.
Martin Luther King once said, "If you succumb to the
temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations
will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness
and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of
chaos."
Martin Luther King also said, "It is only through faith that
we can rise from the midnight of despair to the buoyancy of
hope". We at Journey prepare in faith and hope for
another way through the violence that surrounds us. We sing
for the return of Emanuel, "God is with us", our
only path to peace and security.
In the days of Isaiah of Jerusalem the people were rallying for
war against the great empire of Assyria, modern day Iraq.
Isaiah warned his people that this would only bring more misery.
He said that the birth of Emanuel, the king's son, would be a sign
of God's peace. By the time that child reached maturity the
threat would evaporate if the people would trust in God rather
than military might. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus is
described as Emanuel, a prince of peace whose reign would eclipse
sword and spear.
Today we continue the vigil of the ages. At the close of the
most violent century in human history , on the brink of another
war, we may wonder "How far is the night". We pray
for peace and look toward the dawn of God's justice in the
midnight of despair. And together we sing for Emanuel.
"O Come, Desire of Nations, bind in one the hearts of all
humankind. Bid thou our sad divisions cease and be thyself
our prince of peace."
"O Come desire of nations, bind in one the hearts of all
humankind. Bid thou our sad divisions cease and be thyself
our prince of peace. REJOICE! REJOICE! Emanuel shall
come to you O Israel."
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The exegesis of the vigil in this homily comes from Tom Conry's
remark's in his songbook, "Vigil: Christmas".
The exegesis of Mark comes from Ched Myers' commentary,
"Binding the Strong Man".