We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For

(Part Three of The Advent of Us)

As we wrap up our series, The Advent of Us, also in our reading this week is more hyperbolic and metaphorical language from the Hebrew prophets about when empires who oppressed the people would be brought down. Typically, writers disguised or hid language about earth-disrupting events such as the destruction of empires that the people hoped for in the language of heavenly disruption and upheaval. The people knew what was being referred to while also having plausible deniability for the authorities to which they answered but hoped would one day be ended.

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(Read this series from the beginning at Part 1 and Part 2.)

Here are a few examples:

The stars of heaven and their constellations

will not show their light.

The rising sun will be darkened

and the moon will not give its light. (Isaiah 13:10)

When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens

and darken their stars;

I will cover the sun with a cloud,

and the moon will not give its light. (Ezekiel 32:7)

Before them the earth shakes,

the heavens tremble,

the sun and moon are darkened,

and the stars no longer shine. (Joel 2:10)

The sun will be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. (Joel 2:31)

The followers of Jesus then used this same rhetoric to speak of the hope-for downfall of Rome:

I will show wonders in the heavens above

and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and billows of smoke.

The sun will be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. (Acts 2:19-20)

What can we take away from all of this in our present moment?

Advent is first and foremost a time to hold on to hope in the face of every reason to have no hope. To be honest, I don’t feel like I have the energy that the next four years is going to require of us. I’m still in my own stages of grief. My anger is subsiding but it’s still there. I’ve got a long way to go to get to acceptance of what now will be, and not with resignation but with renewed commitments to justice, resistance, working harder to mitigate harms to the vulnerable in our society. I’m not looking forward to the chaos that will put so many in harm’s way.

And yet, we aren’t the first ones to have to live through times we wish we didn’t have to. The people of our passage this week found reasons to keep looking forward to hope as well. They found reasons to keep living in love, to keep choosing compassion, to keep taking action. And we must, too. The difference is that whereas the original audience of our passage was still looking forward to the advent of a hero who would save them, two millennia later, many of us realize that hero worship can be counter productive and even harmful to our justice work. To quote the poet June Jordan, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

This Advent season I’m reminded that Advent is about something finally showing up. We are the ones who, especially at this moment, must show up. We are the ones we are mutually depending on now. Jesus taught about the power of community to survive and transform the world around us even in the most difficult of times, shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. Jesus taught us not to isolate and rely just on ourselves, but to come together. No matter what the future brought, we could get through it together, knowing we had each other’s back. This is what is described in the opening chapter of the books of Acts in the wake of Jesus’ crucifixion. And, once again, this is now the time to renew our commitment to making sure everyone is taken care of.

I know from the last time that what is coming won’t be easy. But this Advent, I’m choosing to hold on to the hope that resistance and survival is possible as we renew our commitments to each other. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

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