Pacing
The word “pace” can be used in a number of ways. As a noun, we talk about measuring the distance between two points, how many steps, how many “paces” you take to get from one point to the other. “Pace” can also describe a state of anxiety or panic—to pace back and forth—or, to talk about slowing down, to “pace yourself.”
The concept of pacing is familiar to those who live with chronic illness. A friend posted a quote the other day that read: “Pacing is the hardest thing I have ever had to learn to do. Resting, taking regular breaks and not being busy goes against every grain of my being. I never sat still before becoming ill. But it’s what I have to do to survive.”
Pacing as measurement; pacing as coping mechanism; pacing as survival. It’s no wonder the concept of pacing is an important one for the Christian season of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas. If we leap ahead and fail to count our steps - Advent 1, Advent 2, Advent 3, Advent 4 - we miss out on what exactly it is we’re preparing to welcome at Christmas.
On Friday evening, St Clement’s opened its door for a free, community-wide event we called “Photos (and fun!) with Santa”. The event was billed as a festive Christmas celebration for families and individuals looking to capture that all important photo with Santa. What it became was an opportunity to slow down, to take a moment to pace yourself in this busy season.
I saw mums and dads relaxing in a pew, another mum or a granddad holding the baby so the parents could rest a while. I saw Santa and Santa's elf—who, gosh, could’ve been relatives of Art Tinker and David Smith—they were taking a vested interest in every child who came to see them—four hours non stop—taking seriously talk of remote control spiders and PS5 Fortnight. There was an elf who looked suspiciously like Beth teaching crafts in Santa’s workshop, another elf who bore a striking resemblance to Peggy reading stories to little ones while parents chatted with volunteers about the St Nicholas history behind Santa Claus, and when would we be celebrating our Christmas services?
On the first Sunday of Advent, we talked about how we never know when dark times might enter our lives, and how Jesus teaches us to be curious about the unknown even as we fear it. On this second Sunday of Advent, there’s a voice crying, but we might not hear it or know to slow down and listen for it unless we learn first to pace ourselves.
In the gospel reading, John the Baptist is calling out for people to pay attention to this voice. In a first century Jewish context, when John the Baptist came to town, he wasn’t exactly the kind of relative you told to come back another time, nor an acquaintance you put off because you weren’t all that interested in seeing them. John the Baptist was a larger than life character. We’re told he “wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist.” For any first century Jewish audience hearing this, they would have immediately recalled a story passed down for generations about a king who was injured and sent messengers to worship an unknown god and inquire whether the king would live or die. Along the way, the messengers meet a prophet named Elijah, who tells them to tell the king, “What on earth are you doing turning to this unknown god when the God you have always depended on is at your side? You will surely die!”
When the messengers return to the king with Elijah’s warning, the king asks what this prophet looked like. He was a hairy man, they say, with a leather belt around his waist!
John the Baptist is like Elijah. Just as Elijah rebuked the king for forgetting his God, so also John the Baptist calls the people in his time and place to remember what God’s reign is like. God’s reign isn’t something they can put in their back pocket and forget about; it’s something they must prepare to usher in. Nor is preparing for God’s reign something they can wave off, as if to say, we are descendants of Abraham, we come from a good line, we don’t need to worry about the saviour of the world taking us in.
There is no marker of human success, no status symbol, no blood line, no level of seeming to have it all together that can prepare a person for the arrival of the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. When we think of the Saviour that came into the world, the one John the Baptist was announcing compared to the one people were expecting—maybe even the one we wish we had today—they couldn’t be more different. Jesus came from Abraham’s line, sure, he also came from a long line of kings, but they were kings who lied and cheated and stole and made mistakes and forgot God and fell from grace and had to find a way to repent and ask God for forgiveness. Jesus came from a line that included many esteemed Israelite leaders, yes, but he also came from Gentile blood, from a good number of outsiders: sex workers and runaways and people who had been thrown out of their communities.
Sure, you’re from Abraham, John the Baptist tells the people in Jesus’ time, but go ahead and see what it means to come from Abraham. Go ahead and count your paces, see who it is exactly who winds up in Abraham’s line.
When it comes to the God who comes into the world as a human being, we are all on a level playing field. We all stand before God having made mistakes, having needed to repent and ask God for forgiveness, having turned away at some point from an old way of life in order to prepare for a new one. We needn’t go looking for a God who welcomes only those who have it all together, or only those who have the so-called right skin colour or gender or family line. We need only to stop and count our paces, to remember how it is God in heaven got from there to here, how it is that the God of the universe, the Creator of all humankind chose to come into this world.
It began with a God who with humility and curiosity welcomed the darkness. It continued with a voice crying: “in the wilderness, prepare a way.” I wonder what God will do next? Amen.
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