Third Wednesday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Actively Waiting: Cocoons, Change, Church and the Coming Christ
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare
Three hundred hand-folded origami butterflies, tenderly wrapped in torn sheet cocoons, threaded onto fishing line and hung across our sanctuary. An art installation to kick off lent, a reminder that in the darkness, in our proverbial piles of goo, in the waiting, God cocoons us in his hands, transforming us with her grace. The big reveal was to come Easter Sunday morning. Our church family would enter the sanctuary and be met with the bright colourfulness of 300 butterflies soaring above them. The waiting over, the tattered cocoons lying at their feet, the transformation complete. But that day has yet to come.
COVID arrived in Kingston, as it did across the world — unexpectedly, demanding our attention, our obedience. In a matter of moments, everything changed, all our plans were disrupted. An all too real Lenten experience was imposed on us. A mandated fast from gathering face-to-face. A forced exile from our sanctuaries. Nine months later here we are in the midst of Advent, the butterflies still hanging in their cocoons. We remain in exile. We wait. Groaning as in the pains of childbirth. Awaiting our deliverance as we cry out “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.” As we anticipate Christ’s coming to deliver us not only from COVID but from the brokenness and uncertain realities of this world. We wait to be ushered into the new and everlasting hope that is His Kingdom come. It is here in our exile spaces and places, I find myself reflecting on the meaning, and manner of our waiting.
I admittedly do not have much insight into the meaning of our present COVID circumstances. We live in a fallen and broken world in need of redemption and transformation, longing for the coming Christ and His Kingdom. It has occurred to me though, that God could be using our current crisis to spur on transitions we the Church have been reluctant to pursue for a variety of reasons. What I am convinced of is that there is an opportunity in the waiting. Like the caterpillar cocooned, or a baby in womb, the waiting provides the shaping and forming necessary to give birth to a fresh start and a renewed hope. The key is how we wait — what we do in the waiting. We can wait suspiciously, pessimistically, clinging to what was, hoping for things to go back to normal. We can resign to what is, cloistered away passively waiting until God’s Kingdom comes. Or rather than trying to escape the wait, we can consider what God would have us do. How God would have us serve in the waiting amid change and disruption, even in exile.
Jeremiah 29:4-7 has been my go-to passage during this pandemic. I have reflected on these words time and again in seeking to guide and serve alongside our congregation and community. The words from Jeremiah 29:4-7 have provided insight and encouragement of how to wait well, whether it is waiting for the COVID pandemic to pass or the coming of Christ and His Kingdom. Though thousands of years and vast cultural and circumstantial differences separate our experiences, the wisdom and insights offered translate as powerfully now as then.
The Israelites had been forced into exile by the Babylonians. They were taken from their homeland, no longer able to gather at the temple. Some like the prophet Hananiah, played down their plight and wrongly assured them that things would be back to normal in no time, two years or less. The prophet Jeremiah however offers up God’s truth, that the waiting would not be short-lived. He then provided insights and instructions with regards to their waiting.
Jeremiah makes it clear that God is with them in the waiting. Up until their exile, the Israelites understood the presence of God to be confined to the temple in Jerusalem. Yet here they are in a foreign country, no access to the temple and God is speaking to them. Through the prophet Jeremiah, they are reminded that God’s presence remains with God’s people even in exile. In the waiting, God is still sovereign, still in control. As we wait for the coming of Christ, as we wait for the re-opening of our sanctuaries, as we anticipate our deliverance from our COVID exile, we are reminded that God’s presence is with us – in us. We can worship and commune with God anywhere, in any circumstances because wherever we go the presence of God goes with us, and the Church is there. Thousands of years later we still need the reminder, motivation and encouragement this verse provides us in our exile, in our waiting. Our buildings, gatherings, programs, policies, and procedures are tools that serve the mission but are not meant to define, confine or constrict it.
Forced into a foreign land Jeremiah leverages the exile, the waiting, as a catalyst for renewing their calling, encouraging the people of God to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Like the Israelites, as the people of God, we are called to bring blessings to the nations and flourishing to all people. Yet our inclination to remain in our insular bubbles, clinging to our tribes, traditions, buildings, ways of thinking and doing has sometimes impeded our ability to live fully into said mission. Now ready and willing or not, COVID has sent us into the world. We have been afforded an opportunity to enter a process of exchange in which the culture receives from the church afresh and the church is reformed in a new way to deal with their new reality. Jeremiah’s word from the Lord to the Israelites has informed our COVID waiting, and I pray our continued ADVENT waiting. Cocooned in God’s transformative grace, we made the conscious decision to be intentional in our waiting. To leverage the COVID crisis as a catalyst for transformation. To embrace the exile and renew our calling to bring blessings to the nations and flourishing to all people, stepping up our active presence in our neighbourhoods.
There are so many reasons to lament our current situation. It has been a painful, confusing, uncertain time. We continue to be stretched in ways we could not have imagined; we have suffered loss, had to adapt and let go. Yet I cannot help but also rejoice and even give thanks for this time of exile and waiting. As we have considered how we will wait, leaning into our calling to bring blessings and flourishing to all people, seeking to reflect the Kingdom where God has placed us, I have had the privilege of witnessing the impact our active and creative presence is making. Individuals are serving in the very places they find themselves. A woman is providing meals, companionship and spiritual care to the classics in her apartment. Another person has re-discovered during the pandemic a gift for poetry writing, which is being used to encourage and minister to others. Individuals are stepping up to help deliver food to those who are unable to get to our blessings cart. People who had rarely if ever darkened the doors of a church are on porches and in yards being prayed for, reading scripture, engaging in conversations about faith, the church and God. Individuals who had not aligned themselves with a faith community are now publicly claiming our church as their own.
Strangers have become friends.
Existing relationships are deepening.
Christ is being reflected, the Goods New is being lived out.
Community members are partnering with us providing resources and finances as we seek to care for our neighbours and neighbourhood in practical ways.
I am not convinced that the seeds that have been planted and the fruit that we are witnessing would have been realized apart from our response to the COVID crisis and how we are actively waiting in our season of exile. For certain we have seen our vision to become the neighbourhood church come to greater fruition. Our church buildings are located in the centre of a neighbourhood. While the buildings have remained relatively empty for nine months, the mission has continued. It has been articulated in a myriad of ways by those both inside and outside our congregation, that the church (not the building) has increasingly become a beacon of hope, light and peace, in an otherwise uncertain, stressful and difficult season.
An often-asked question is “if your church closed its doors tomorrow, would anyone in your neighbourhood miss it?” My response would be no, because I trust the church is still being the church doors open or closed. The neighbourhood, on the other hand, I think would respond by doing all they could to help ensure our physical doors stay open.
Perhaps even more encouraging is the beauty I am seeing as our church is becoming in the words of Thomas Cahill “more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than before.” There is an openness and excitement about trying new creative ways of being the Church. Deeper, courageous conversations of what it means to be the Church are taking place. There has been an increase of vulnerability, and a willingness to wrestle with what we believe and why. So, we wait—imperfectly but intentionally. We very obviously have struggles, hurdles, imperfections and missteps. We are still needing to be cocooned in the chrysalis of God’s hands, her transforming grace at work in us. We’re not yet ready to break forth in full flight. We may still be in the pile of goo process of our transformation, but we actively wait with the confident assurance that one day COVID will pass and our proverbial cocoons will give way to a more brilliant reflection of Christ, and in the end, He and His Kingdom will come.
Thank you for reading the New Leaf Advent Reader, a collection of reflections from writers across Canada. If you are enjoying the reader, sign up to receive the readings in your inbox each day here: SIGN UP
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One of the ways we have been connecting online since the pandemic pushed us online is through our Learning Centre, a weekly interactive Zoom call on a topic with a Canadian voice of wisdom. For the season of Advent, we will be featuring a few of our writers and making space to reflect together on the Advent Reader articles. Join us for the interactive sessions on Thursdays at 1:30 pm (Eastern time) or sign up and view the recordings of the sessions afterwards. SIGN UP for the Learning Centre Advent sessions.
