Christmas decorations are up in all the stores. Christmas carols seem to have filled the airwaves since the day after Halloween. Our children have been practicing diligently for their Christmas musical for a long time. It’s all about the stable, the star and the shepherds.

And yet this is not how the writer of the gospel of Mark speaks about this time of year. His language suggests cosmic fireworks: a darkened sun, a dim moon, stars falling from the sky like sparks from a sparkler - and there, in the midst of it all, the Son of God coming in clouds with great glory.

Mark is sharing a vision of the end time, when the world as we know it will be healed, restored and blessed, to become the kind of world God has been trying to create for us all along. For the most part, we have refused that world. It is too demanding a world to live in; too much togetherness, too much accountability, too much humility.

Advent, then, is not so much a predictable, dull and obvious celebration of Christ’s birth, but rather a retelling of a story we really did not know. It is about cataclysmic change, transformation, all things being made new, a new heaven and earth, a new community and, perhaps best of all, a new us! That, I think, is our hope and God’s promise.