You have been out for the evening and you come home…

you put the key in the lock and turn it…

push the front door open… 

and step in.

But it’s not how you left it.

There’s broken glass on the floor.

Everything has been disturbed.

Cupboard doors are ajar.

Drawers are hanging half-opened.

Books have been pulled from their shelves.

Papers have been strewn across the floor.

There are empty spaces where the television and computer once sat.

Treasured mementoes are missing from the mantelpiece…

others lie in pieces on the floor.

Jewellery is gone.

Your pulse begins to race… 

and your stomach sinks…

as the realisation of what has happened begins to set in.

Initially, perhaps, there may be a sense of fear or alarm––

could the person who did this still be in the house?

But soon it’s accompanied or overtaken by other feelings––

feelings like disappointment, frustration, and loss…

and, of course, anger.

But, as the realisation of what has happened really begins to sink in––

and the full significance begins to dawn upon you––

you realise that, perhaps, the greatest loss wasn’t what was actually taken or damaged.

It was, rather, the loss of a sense of security…

and the loss of innocence or naivety.

The greatest loss was your assumed sense that this home––

this place that was yours––

was a place of comfort and retreat…

a place of safety and security.

But it no longer is.

And, perhaps, there’s the realisation that it never was.

Indeed, the greatest violence of a break-in

is the shattering of illusions.

And it’s easy for that disillusionment to snow-ball.

For a brief period of time, the world can suddenly seem a scary place…

with danger lurking at every turn and in every shadow…

and life is no longer safe or secure.

In time, of course, you get less jumpy…

less paranoid.

And, in a way, you get over it.

You would probably take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again––

like installing more or better security measures.

And, in time it will become a bitter, but distant memory…

and life will, more or less, return to normal.

But in that instance––

for a brief period of time––

your world…

and everything that you take for granted… 

is upended.

Of course… 

if, when you had returned home, the burglar had still been there…

then that would have been a whole different story.

The feelings of fear, violation, and threat…

would have been even more tangible…

and the sense of danger and the potential for harm…

would have been even more real.

It’s a situation that none of us hopes that we––

or those whom we love––

will ever experience.

It’s a situation that few of us would willingly contemplate.

 

The author of Second Peter––

writing in the name of Peter, but long after his death…

most likely some time well into the second century––

was trying to engender a sense of hope in the face of growing scepticism. 

At the time that he wrote, a couple of generations of Christians had died.

And with them had died the eager longer… 

and expectation…

that Christ would return soon… 

and that God would fulfil God’s purposes for them and for the whole creation. 

In the face of that growing scepticism and doubt…

the author was trying to keep such hopes alive.

He reassures them… 

that God doesn’t operate according to human experiences or definitions of time;

that the apparent delay was to allow more time for repentance.

And, in the face of growing opposition and oppression from the wider community––

and even, possibly, from the State––

the author expects or sees that fulfilment or culmination in apocalyptic…

end-of-the-world terms.

And yet, even more than that, he chillingly proclaims, 

“The day of the Lord will come like a thief”.

He challenges them to imagine that God’s coming among them…

and God’s working to fulfil God’s intentions…

will be experienced as a form of violation…

one that engenders disorientation…

and disillusionment.

It will be, for them, a world upending experience…

something that will undermine their sense of safety and security…

something that will disturb their everyday reality…

something that will shatter all their taken-for-granteds.

He challenges them to imagine that God’s coming among them…

that God’s working among them…

is tantamount to a burglary.

 

Of course…

the author’s apocalyptic, world-ending imagery and worldview…

isn’t one…

or shouldn’t be one…

that sits comfortably with us, today.

Barring a massive asteroid strike––

which still seems to belong to the realm of B-grade science fiction movies––

or a nuclear holocaust––

which seems much less likely these days than a couple of generations ago––

a cataclysmic end to the world seems unlikely.

Even this pandemic isn’t going to come close in reality.

And, indeed, the author’s worldview…

and theology…

doesn’t fit comfortably with the image of God that most of us hold…

or ought to hold.

God doesn’t work like that.

And it doesn’t fit with the sort of peaceful, loving, forgiving, all-embracing God…

that Jesus demonstrated… 

and taught us to believe in.

 

And yet, are we not guilty, at times of overly domesticating God?

 

And nowhere, perhaps, do we see this more than in the season of Christmas.

Aided by heavily romanticised paintings and hymnody…

of gently lowing cattle…

pensive and pietistic young shepherds…

an irenic young mother…

and a peacefully sleeping newborn babe…

within a pristinely clean stable…

with myriad stars shinning in a perfectly clear sky…

and a radiantly beaming angelic host proclaiming, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all”––

our images of God breaking into our world and our lives are a portrait of safety and security.

Wrapped together with a plethora of rites and rituals…

handed down from generation to generation…

Christmas has come to be, for us, the epitome of traditionalism and conservatism.

The whole parcel is reassuringly positive and hopeful.

It’s fairy-floss for our spiritual sweet-tooth.

But perhaps it shouldn’t be.

Perhaps, to borrow the imagery of the author of Second Peter…

we should understand Christmas as the first instalment of God’s break-in;

God’s act of burglary upon the safety and security of our neatly constructed lives… 

and our neatly-constructed world.

Perhaps we should begin to see all of this as anything but irenic.

Perhaps, rather, we need to consider…

that God’s in-breaking into our world and our lives comes as a radical overturning and undermining…

of everything that we take for granted…

of everything that we hold dear––

both in terms of our religious sensibilities…

but, also, in terms of the very ordinary way that we go about life…

and the expectations…

hopes…

and dreams…

that we harbour;

but ways of going about life…

that, unwittingly…

maybe harmful to others or to our world.

Rather than something irenic and reassuring––

let alone safe and conservative–– 

we’re invited to understand God’s activity in our world… 

and in our lives…

as something inherently and innately disturbing…

disillusioning…

disrupting…

deconstructing…

even destroying.

And, what’s more, we’re invited to embrace that––

figuratively…

to unlock the doors and the windows…

and allow it to happen.

Advent invites us to become willing victims of God’s act of burglary.