Black Sunday

Meditation for the First Sunday of Advent 2017

            Lectionary Readings:  Isaiah 64: 109; Psalm 80: 1-7; I Corinthians 1: 1-3;

                                                                        Mark 13: 24-33

            It is called Black Friday today because of the massive amount of money that is spent the day after Thanksgiving that puts so many retailers “in the black,” but the origin of the term goes back to a reference in The New York Times in 1870 that referred to the day the gold market collapsed.

            The term became popular again in 1960 when the Philadelphia police used the term to describe the mayhem caused by massive traffic jams and crowded public places.  So a term that was once rooted in chaos and disorder has been co-opted by our consumer driven culture.

            If you read the above scripture passages for the First Sunday of Advent you might think that this Sunday ought to be called “Black Sunday.” And I am referring not to the retail version of the term but to its origins where there is chaos and disorder. What gives?

            With the echo of Andy Williams singing, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” ringing in our ears, the “wonderful time” is drowned out with shouts from Isaiah that God is angry at us and therefore will not pay attention because God will “hide” his face.  Rather than left-over turkey the divine diet offered to hungry people consists of “bread made with tears.”

            And then comes “the gospel,” which is supposed to mean “good news.”  So what do we hear from Mark’s “gospel?”  The sun will be darkened and the stars will fall from the sky; Black Sunday!

            So we might be tempted to take the Advent bypass and fill our hearts and minds with some jingle bells as we rock around the Christmas tree.  But alas my friends we must stop and remember that for the Christian pilgrim who really desires to take the Advent journey that we are dealing with an alternative calendar and a different view of time.

            Advent begins the Christian New Year on what could be called a Black Sunday, but it is for a reason.  There will be no “Auld Lang Syne” sung for our Christian New Year but we must slow down and resist even singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” even though we want to.  Advent is at least a “yield” sign if not a “stop sign” along our journey.  This is not “alternative facts,” but it is alternative time.

            Why acknowledge the black of darkness and stars falling at a time when we yearn for Joy to the World?  It is because for the Christian who desires to follow the one who proclaims that he is the “light of the world” that the light after all does come in the midst of darkness.

            I remind you that according to our discoveries from the study of the creation of the Cosmos that 95% of the known universe is made up of what is called dark energy and dark matter.  Yes, the light shines in the darkness but the darkness is and always has been very “black.” 

            Why remember this at Advent?  It is because if we stop and pause like we are supposed to at the Advent “stop sign” we must acknowledge that it is dark out there.  Terror and those who espouse its gospel of darkness fills the headlines.  Natural disasters continue whether you believe in global warming or not.  Children’s faces haunt is whether it is from malnutrition or the newly bald head of a child undergoing chemotherapy.  It is dark and no jolly old elf can make the darkness go away.

            So the Advent journey does begin in the darkness of a God who seems to be hiding and in the shadow of a sun that seems to refuse to shine.  Only a made up god promises to take away the darkness if we are good little boys and girls who long to not be on the naughty list.  The real God wants us to know that in the created order there has always been a lot of darkness so that when we do hear the “good news” in the midst of the noise of the Christmas rush we will really hear it for what it is.

            And what is it?  The light shines in the darkness and though the darkness is vast and pervasive in the cosmos and sometimes in our lives, the darkness will not and cannot overcome it. 

            So the child will be born under a flashing light that reads “No Vacancy.”  And the first visitors will be the outcasts of the day who would long to even be considered “red necks.”  Shepherds who were not welcome by any upstanding religious person of the day suddenly appear in the midst of a stable.  The light will shine in the darkness.

            His mother will still have to deal with rumors and gossip when she returns to her home town.  Only Joseph had that dream about a birth without a human daddy.  The villagers of Nazareth knew better.  Only the kindness of Joseph kept the men of the tiny town from pulling Mary out of her house and stoning her at her father’s door step.  That is what was supposed to have happened according to the scriptural law for such a sin.

            There was no nativity scene for Joseph and Mary.  This did not happen on a mantle or coffee table. They were no figurines.  They were real people very much in the dark that night.  Mary may have wondered after finding a feeding trough to place her child in just what that angel of nine months ago really meant.

            It was dark.  Advent begins this way for us and our world.  As a working pastor one of the things I did the most was stand with people in their darkness.  They often wondered, “Why?”  Why is the darkness surrounding me?  Is God hiding or something?  It seems like that. 

            So I would listen and then I would gently tell them that it has always been dark “out there.”  God is not hiding but Emmanuel will mean “God with us….in the darkness.”  The darkness is real but again this year the light will come into our darkness.  We will never be alone even when we feel that way.

            So Christian pilgrim, if you are still reading this and have not taken the Advent bypass, hang on.  It is Black Sunday for a reason and you are that reason.  God is an honest God who does not hide behind the darkness but who stands with us in the midst of it.

            So as we hear those strange words from the gospel of Mark that seem to mark “the end,” know that is it in reality a new beginning in the” black.”  The light will again come into the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it because our God takes in even the darkness.

            Those who slow down and even stop on this Advent journey will be even more thankful when it comes time to sing Joy to the World.  Black Sunday is the beginning of a journey toward the light.  Thanks be to God.

            Blessed Advent.