Dusk to Dawn: A New Season - Advent I--Year C--November 29, 2009 - The Reverend David R. Williams

“Come, O come Emmanuel, you are the way, the truth and the life; you are the true vine and the bread of life.  Come, living Savior, come to your world – a world waiting for you.” Amen.

Look around. Notice the changes from last Sunday in this beautiful sanctuary. Now blue hangings grace the altar, lectern and pulpit.  Blue banners hang from the ceiling on either side of the nave.  I wear a blue stole.  The Advent wreath is rekindled – one candle.

When I celebrate the Eucharist, I shall stand facing the same direction as everyone in the congregation, almost as if we all are looking over the horizon – into the dark fog just before dawn. We know the sun will appear, but we aren’t sure exactly when the light will break.  So we seek, we strain our eyes and our hearts, looking into the mystery. 

The veil separating “out-there” from our known “here-and-now” is thin. We have been told the new day is coming; a new Godly presence will appear. 

“O Come, O come Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God Appear.”

Something is new here. Still, the lessons sound all too familiar.  Did we not hear just two weeks ago the portent of “end-times” when our world will  implode in earthquakes, famine, “nation against nation?” Well, o.k., that was the end of the season of Pentecost – in fact the end of the seasonal church year. But today, the dawn of a new season, Jesus warns, “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of heavens will be shaken.”  

Photography is a hobby of mine. I am very much an amateur, but over the years I have learned some things about light. Not all light is the same.  A photography expert has said that the best place for taking a picture indoors of a particular subject is near a window – no direct sunlight, simply the natural light of day filtered through the glass.  Do not use a flash, he says, but have your subject just close enough to the light of the natural world. The dirtier the window, the better! The photographer needs a muted light. Avoid harsh, washed-out extremes of light. 

I have learned that the best times for outdoor photography are dusk...and dawn.  The light is warm, soft.  The more closely you can time your pictures to actual sundown or sunset – the more muted and mysterious the scenes.  This is tricky because, at some point, the picture risks being “dark” – losing all contrast and clarity.  But there a few precious minutes of opportunity just as the dusk of the day takes over--or just as the dawn begins--and these moments make the difference between a great photograph and a dud, a throw-away.

We have seen these pictures – glorious sunrises and sunsets. The winners have almost a movement in themselves. We might sense a presence... leading to a future…captured in picture. 

“O come, O come thou Wisdom from on high, who orderest all things mightily; to us the path of knowledge show, and teach us in her ways to go.”

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among the nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” Jesus says of this new day.  Every dusk and dawn has signs of emergence in the sun, the moon, and the stars.

A parishioner shares a story about her dad just before he dies.  Her dad says that he can hear his mother calling to him during the night.  “Her voice was so clear that I tried to get up,” he tells his daughter.

A time of twilight blurs past and present. We sense a future time…a time to live, and a time to rest from labor.

Celtic people spoke of the “time between the times,” the enchanted moments of dusk and dawn when the veil between this earthly world and the world beyond is gossamer-thin. We breathe the air of both times and all time...timelessness.

This sanctuary of Holy Comforter in our symbolism of Church seasons reminds us well that, in essence, we live and breathe in a time between times, between death and birth, between the “already” of Christ’s reign, Pentecost, and the “not yet” of Advent, as one theologian has said. 

The church year draws us into the drama into the “light,” if you will – into the muted, mysterious light of what has been, is, and is yet to be.

Both Jeremiah and Jesus, separated by 600 years, are our witnesses to the devastation of Jerusalem – the destruction of the Holy of Holies--Jesus foresaw what was coming, and, by the time Luke documents his own version of the story of Jesus, Jerusalem is being destroyed. Jesus’ prophecy is now fully known.

The vision of such devastation rips our hearts.  

From the depths of Jeremiah’s broken soul, he sings his promise of dawn, a new day, a new age of hope.  “In those days and at that time, the Lord will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and the new branch  shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

A writer says, “The outlandish language of apocalypse – all that cosmic upheaval, all those heavenly signs – maybe be just right for conveying Jesus’ central message to folks like us.  In the dullness of our half-lived lives, Jesus startles us into wakefulness.”

 “Stand up!” “Raise your heads!” “Look!” “Be alert.”.

We are as likely as any of God’s children to be “weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life.”  Our worlds are not immune to harsh wake-up calls, unaware though we may be.

Jesus says, “Look at the fig tree…the darkness of dusk turns to the light of the dawn…look at the fig tree.”

No, not just the fig tree.  “Look at all the trees.”  As soon as they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that a new season is near.

So, also, when the light dawns, see the leaves and know that the Kingdom of God is near, Jesus says.

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns is lonely exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee.”

As we begin the season of Advent, everything just feels a little different here in church.   The veil is thin.  We stand together, sensing that almost-imperceptible emergence of a new time.

“It is both an evening time and a morning time, when we learn what we must relinquish and to what we must open our hearts and hands, we learn what is dying and what is being born.”

Amen.