I will be honest: I don't spend much time reading either the visions featured in the prophet Daniel or the book of Revelation.  Both of these biblical books are apocalyptic and feature dreams that are odd and at times frightening about the end of time.  They are weird and hard to read, let alone understand.

 

Yet these readings are in our scriptures and are important, and they come up year after year, especially this time of year as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King and prepare to begin the season of Advent. This year, as I tried to read and pay attention to them I found myself struck by how in both of today's passages what seems very ordinary becomes very strange.  And then I thought how that might actually be an important message for us this Advent.

 

The gospel reading (Luke 21:29-33) begins with Jesus asking his disciples to think about the very ordinary - the trees that they see around them everyday.   When they are flowering, the disciples know that summer is near.  Jesus uses this very ordinary image of trees with flowers to think about God's kingdom, and the signs by which we'll know that the Kingdom of God is near.  Previous verses describe these signs of the Kingdom of God: the seas will roar, the son of man will descend from heaven, people will die of fright.

 

The contrast in images is stark.  How can Jesus compare image of a flowering tree, which seems so gentle and calm, to the images Jesus gives us about his second coming, with its death and roaring waves?

 

The prophet Daniel writes of similar kinds of images in today's first reading (Daniel 7:2-14): great big beasts who initially seem like ordinary beasts - a lion, a bear - quickly turn out to be strange.  The lion has eagle's wings, a leopard has four sets of wings.  But also: the son of man comes descending through the clouds, just as in the gospel passages leading up to today's gospel reading.

 

In both passages, the son of man comes on clouds.  In Daniel, we see that he has power and glory and dominion.  Of course, Christians know the son of man is Jesus.  He is a guiding light in the midst of all the chaos and terror.  Horrific stuff happens all throughout the readings, and yet the passages ask us not to focus on the horrific things, but on Jesus himself.

 

Of course, Jesus is also "ordinary, but made strange": in some Gospel accounts, we read about how his friends and family in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-24) couldn't believe that Jesus was anything special because they saw only an ordinary boy they'd grown up with.  Yet in these passages, here he is, in the clouds, exuding glory and majesty.  He's a long way from Nazareth.  What seems ordinary becomes very strange.

 

As we move into Advent, it is tempting to think of all our rituals and events as ordinary.  It is tempting to think, "here we go again" as we sing O Come, O Come Immanuel once again, as we set up the creche scenes once again, as we sing about a baby once again.  What could be more ordinary (in some ways) than a baby, after all?  But when we see things as too ordinary, we also begin not to take them seriously enough.

 

So today, let us prepare for Advent by reminding ourselves that God comes to us in our ordinary world and makes that world appear strange.   Let us embrace that strangeness and allow what is strange to help us take seriously what God is doing for us in our lives.

 

- Jana M. Bennett