This coming Sunday marks the beginning of the season of Advent in the Christian calendar. This is the time of waiting for the light. The call is to both wait and to prepare. Perhaps, by God’s grace, there will be a clearance of that which inhibits. Perhaps, every valley will be raised up and every mountain made low, so that then we can together see the glory of the light.
But, today is Black Friday.
I received, like you I imagine, many emails today from stores and companies today telling me that something momentous had arrived. One electronics store’s email had the simple headline, “IT’S HAPPENING!!”
The “It” in question was not some world altering good news. It was a sale. 30% off some particular sizes of some particular brands of televisions.
Astonishment has been co-opted. I can be as astonished as anyone else about a sale. Just today I bought some fancy soap and it was - are you ready for this? - 50% off.
“IT’S HAPPENING!!!!!”
Co-opted astonishment is not only the purview of the market and the mall. Too often, Christian leaders and speakers have nothing truly astonishing to speak about so they put in a lot of exclamation marks and capital letters. “We are so excited about …” Or they take up battles against other people. Culture wars have little that is astonishing to offer. What is offered instead is anger, fear, warning, and then a lot of exclamation marks.
As Advent brings the journey towards Christmas, I find my imagination caught up with the story of Zechariah in the Gospel of Luke. Zechariah was a religious leader but he was, apparently, largely unastonished. He was tired and I think kind of weighed down by the obligations of his work and a feeling that what he longed for in life had eluded him. As we hear his story, he is assigned one day to light the incense representing the prayers of the people being lifted up to God. He goes into a more holy place in the temple to do this. He seems to be going through the motions, even on this day that should have been more exceptional to him. In the process of fulfilling his religious duty, something astounding happens. An angel appears. This is not just any angel, this is the Angel Gabriel.
It isn’t hard to see the evidence that most people do not expect to meet God in church. This can be true of religious leaders as well as people in the congregation. What on earth would happen if God showed up at a church in your neighbourhood?
You can find the details of Zechariah’s encounter with Gabriel at an Advent service or in reading the account in Luke chapter 1. I’ll just tell you that what Zechariah experienced that day was astonishing. He tried to qualify it. He tried to explain it away, but the angel pronounced a curse/blessing on him that he would not be able to speak for 9 months (this has to do with his wife Elizabeth having a baby in her too-old-to-have-a-baby age). Zechariah was apparently going to rush right past the astonishment. The angel would not allow this. Zechariah would be shut up so that he could see better.
Advent and Christmas are an invitation to renewed astonishment. It is so easy for religion to become devoid of real astonishment. When the focus moves to acceptability and non-acceptability, to us and them, to fear and danger, then the focus ceases to be on the promise that, in love, God has not left us, any of us, alone. There are no God-forsaken places, there are no God-forsaken people.
Karl Barth spoke about the need for astonishment among those who speak about God. He said that it was actually a feat, a kind of unfortunate accomplishment, to cease to be astonished. For Barth, Jesus was the astonishing revelation of God, that God had chosen not to be God without humanity.
Here are some of Barth’s words on the topic:
In a real and decisive sense, therefore he is the miracle of all miracles! Whoever takes up the subject of theology finds themselves inevitably confronted with the miracle. Christ is that infinitely wondrous event which compels a person, so far as he experiences and comprehends this event, to be necessarily, profoundly, wholly and irrevocably astonished.
For many of us, this is first year since 2019 that we have been able to gather for Advent and Christmas services. If you are doing so, may you be blessed with leaders who remain astonished. Barth might say (he pretty much did say) that if they have accomplished the feat of no longer being astonished then they should be, like Zechariah, shut up until they are astonished again.
Maybe this as a blessing - every time you see “IT'S HAPPENING!!” or similar attached to a sale you might be blessed to think about what might actually be astonishing enough to compel such description.
May you be granted faith and hope as we enter this season of Advent.
I love the word astonished - thanks for reminding me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I was going to use all caps but decided the extra !!!!! was enough.)