|
Are we there yet?
a meditation for Advent Sunday
Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
All parents who have ever taken their family on holiday by car are familiar with that pathetic but annoyingly persistent question that floats forward to them from their small children in the back seat: "Are we there yet?" There is a direct mathematical relationship here. The closer you get to the destination, the greater the frequency with which the question is asked. The greater the frequency with which the question is asked, the more likely is it that the parents begin to tell fibs: "No, we are not there yet, but it's just round the next corner," when you suspect jolly well that it isn't.
The child psychologist, Jean Piaget, whose name I can still remember how to spell, but about whom I can remember almost nothing else from my training in that field, claimed that most children need to have reached the age of eleven before they can begin to think in the abstract, so it is pointless to make reference to the logic of the argument that suggests, quite correctly, that we must be closer to our destination than we were when you last asked the question: "Are we there yet?" These days, of course, small children in the back seat do not have to make the forlorn effort to think in the abstract about the relative distances of the journey, because with a satellite navigation system installed in the car, they can watch the route unfolding on the screen before their very eyes.
I did exactly the same thing when we flew to Ghana. Where you sat in the aeroplane, there was a satellite navigation screen set into the headrest of the seat in front of you so that you could watch a pictorial representation of the land that you were crossing thirty-six thousand feet below you. I used it to judge when the aeroplane was approaching the coast of Africa from over the western Mediterranean, and at the appropriate moment I leapt out of my seat and found a window from which I could watch us passing over the snow-capped Atlas Mountains that run virtually to the coast. It was one of the views in the world that I have always wanted to see once in my lifetime – snow in Africa on the mighty Atlas. Soon though, the screen went almost totally blank, but sandy-coloured, for several hours whilst we crossed the Sahara.
Are we there yet? Below us, according to the screen, flowed the great River Volta, so we must have been, and shortly, we were. However, no satellite navigation system has yet been invented to depict how near our Christian pilgrimage has progressed towards the destination of the coming of Christ in glory and in judgement, so we must find another way of anticipating it, beginning with the logic of our text: Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
Of course, it does also depend upon how you define "Salvation", but for our purposes here I would like to interpret it as the Christian pilgrim's time of complete reconciliation with God in his eternal presence. We are thinking of a future reality, promised by God. But trapped in time itself as we are, we are unable to calculate when that eternity will break into the course time, overwhelm it, and make eternity our all-encompassing reality. Such future thoughts, with unattainable conclusions, are the substance of Advent Sunday devotions and meditations.
What is the point of trying to calculate the incalculable when all we know is that it will come to pass because God has promised that it will? People have been trying to read the signs of the times, obviously inaccurately, for nearly two thousand years. We are not trying to expect the unexpected. It is expected. It is just the timing of it that is unexpected, so only the logic of our text is the known factor in the timing: Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Other than being in a state of spiritual readiness, we cannot do much more about it than that. So, what can we do, the question hovering in the back of our mind, if not on our lips: "Are we there yet?"
The great prayer for Advent Sunday, written by Thomas Cranmer and known as the Advent Collect, which is based upon verses from Romans chapter 13, makes our way forward clear: "Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life…" In order to be ready for God's promised future, the Day of Salvation, the Last Judgement, call it what you will, we have got to do something now… in the here and now… in the time of this mortal life…"
What have we got to do? The answer is straightforwardly expressed: cast away the works of darkness… put on the armour of light. Well, that is ancient military imagery. Let's try a modern cricketing metaphor. Decide which side you are batting for… the secular, or the divine? And if you have decided to bat for the divine, then live the sort of life that does justice to the whites that you are wearing.
Does it then matter if we are there yet, or even close to being there, if we have set ourselves to live such a life for God? No, it does not. The logic suffices… Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. If you live for God, by his means and grace, then the outcome, concerning which you may have entire confidence, is assured…. on the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.
Of that day, that famous line from Charles Wesley's hymn gives me a rather unusual vision. Wesley wrote: Bold I approach the eternal throne… Leaving aside a consideration of the relative boldness of the moment (we may consider that in the future), I have a vision of myself walking though a long hall, crowded on both sides with smiling people. At my side, and indeed holding my hand, is a very small angel who looks up at me and says, "Are we there yet?" And I shall say to him, "Sir, you know."