10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – countdown.
Oh, to be like Rachel. To be able to count like her.
To do the maths like her. Or Carol Vorderman before.
The numbers are chosen, ‘two from the bottom and the rest from anywhere else Rachel’ and she plays them up and hits the button to show the target number we must find.
I can hear the clock, and I stare at the numbers, wishing I had paid attention in the Maths class rather than throwing soggy rolled up paper and watching them stick on the ceiling!
(I had a maths teacher whose nickname was ‘The Undertaker’ because he was dressed in black and his hair was white! Strange, considering the vocation I have now.)
The music starts, the clock is shown, and the countdown begins.
As I said before in a sermon, I’m better with words than numbers, but even there I feel the pressure when the countdown is almost complete and I’ve got a four-letter one and the players in the game say, ‘seven’!
By the time you read this Advent will have begun – a time that tells us that Christ is coming, coming soon as a child in a manger. But it is more than a countdown. It is more than the clock running down and reminding us of how little time we have to be at our best when Christmas Day is here.
Advent is for preparing – not only for Christmas but for preparing ourselves.
Advent is for waiting, not only for Christmas to come but for waiting ‘on the Lord’ in stillness and silence.
Advent is for watching, not only for the post, but for the Christ when he comes.
For generations, in Advent, people looked to the future, it was their countdown, for the Second Coming and the end of time.
They could hear the ticking, the music getting louder and they were about to be asked to account for how holy they had lived their lives.
And it wasn’t high IQ Carol or Rachel that was looking for the right answer, but God himself!
As the Gospel readings at this time of year show, some who heard the words of Jesus were convinced it was only a matter of time before that clock ran down and that is why there were warnings of not to marry and settle down because there wasn’t the time. They were told to watch carefully because they did not know when Christ would come ‘like a thief in the night.’
That wasn’t to be – and we know, over 2,000 years later, that God’s time and our time are two different things, but we still believe that when human history comes to an end, Christ will be there.
Beyond that, beyond what we can see, we dare not hazard a guess and will not limit hope. Advent believes also that Christ will come again, not only at the end of time, but now. For Advent is also seeing what he is doing
in the world and watching for Christ coming to you.
You recognising him,
you receiving him,
him bringing peace and joy and setting you free.
I suppose we all live in a kind of countdown scenario. It is often said the difference between humans and animals is that we are aware of our own mortality. We know that there are limits to things, that there are endings, that we are mortal.
And yet, Advent starts our countdown towards a celebration that lets God become one of us, human, born in a cattle trough, to show God’s love and wish to understand the limits we all have in his limitless grace.
And we sing carols, as we will do again outside in our paved area, which was so successful last year, carols that traditionally were ring dances, that also showed the unbrokenness of God’s affection for what he made.
A different carol that shows us the answer to problems that cannot be solved with a paper and pen!!
May, in our waiting and in His Coming, Christ fill your hearts in this season and beyond.
Your friend and minister,
George C Mackay
