The Meaning is in the Waiting

The Meaning is in the Waiting

December 1 / 2013      Matthew 24:36-44 and Isaiah 2:1-5

I hate to wait.   On Black Friday – I made the mistake of going shopping – I was in the Wiarton grocery store picking up 6 or 7 items, hard to imagine that Black Friday had come to Wiarton – but the store was crazy busy Friday afternoon at 5 pm.  (I think it is crazy busy every Friday afternoon at 5 pm- but that is beside the point)  I was in the express line, trying to save some time because I had the girls with me– there is an oxymoron – express lane.  There were only two people in front of me.  I thought I had made the right decision using the express lane.  The guy directly in front of me though, was still shopping as he waited and I watched as he went from 12 items – the maximum allowed in the line, as he added chocolate milk – 13 items, crackers -14 items and two pound of butter – 16 items, and a chocolate bar – 17 items!! – as I stood there getting more and more frustrated the store opened another line but the guy behind me went to the front of that line and by the time I could move my cart with my squirming baby fighting me to get down on the floor, two more people had pulled their carts in behind him – and so moving to the other line seemed ridiculous.   When I finally had succeeded in checking out all three people in the other line where long gone from the store – and I was in a cranky mood – the girls were fussy, and we were running late to pick up Michelle.  I hate to wait.  But it is advent and in advent waiting is what it is all about.  Advent waiting - Waiting for the Christ – the Christ of the past - to come as a baby in Bethlehem, the Christ of the present to come among us now and the Christ of the future to come once more when God’s kingdom is on earth as it is in heaven.  Advent, which begins this Sunday – today -  is four weeks of active waiting.

A colleague shared this about advent this week:  “Advent is not mentioned in the Bible.  Advent is a theological space, which allows us a quantity of time…a space if you will…to breathe in how God comes to us through a baby.

It is a space that quickly begins to shrink as the days move quickly, towards December 24^th and 25^th.  To be honest, there are times when I wish for days of quiet, days spent basking in the silence in order to fully begin to absorb the mystery of Emmanuel, “God-in-us”.

Advent is a liturgical space.  In worship we will light the Advent wreath and our singing takes on a different ‘flavor’.  The church has changed with the addition of greenery, the Nativity scene, the Christmas tree, and many other wonderful visual arts to remind us…we are in a different space…theological and liturgically.[1]

It is advent time, and the readings have shifted as well.  Advent is about preparing us for the coming of Jesus – the coming of the kingdom of God and that is very apparent in the apocalyptic reading – the end time images we read this morning in Matthew – be prepared writes Matthew for no one knows the day or hour – be prepared and keep awake – for the time is imminent –the son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.  Be prepared. 

Be prepared – that is the motto of the Girl Guides and the Boy Scouts – being prepared for them was about having a map and a compass and a Swiss army knife before you set off into the bush to go for a hike.  It was about having a water bottle and medical kit in case of emergencies.  Being prepared for the coming of the Christ is a little like that – metaphorically speaking of course. 

Much of life just happens, no matter what we do to prepare we can’t always predict what is going to happen, we can’t prepare for every eventuality. In the past few weeks we have heard of typhoons and storms, scandals in the Senate and at Toronto City Hall – I am pretty sure that neither Mr. Duffy, Ms Wallin or Mayor Ford were prepared for the public scandal that their decisions created – in fact had they known what was to befall them they might have prepared differently and not made the choices that they made.  Being prepared is hard - at 10.25pm pm Friday evening, Scottish time, a Police helicopter fell on to a pub in Glasgow. When you go to the pub, or out for dinner, do you plan what you will do if a police helicopter crashes into the building? Of course not.  There is no way to prepare for something like that. 

But there is a way to prepare for the coming of the kingdom.  There is a way to be ready for the unexpected hour that Matthew is preparing us for.

I suspect being prepared is about knowing who we are, what we believe and being authentic in our faith and action.  It is about being a Christian in the truest sense of the word – kind of like the map and compass of the boy scouts. It is about knowing God and being aware of how we should be living, what God expects of us as God’s people – 

 

It is about how we care, for ourselves, others and all of God’s creation

It is about how we treat each other to each other’s faces and behind our backs as well

It is about being able to forgive and move on from difficult situations, and maintain relationships even if you have been hurt

it is about being loving instead of judging, living in compassion instead of criticism

it is about being a caring neighbour even if our neighbour does not look like us or act like us or even have the same frame of reference we do

even if our neighbour does not have the same faith as us or even any faith at all. 

Being prepared is living in the way of Christ. 

Today we lit the candle of hope – hope in the world now and also in the past as listened to the voice of Isaiah the prophet of old –

Isaiah was writing at a time when for the people of Israel there had been little to hope about; they had spent more time warring with other nations, and each other than anyone could remember. Life was not hopeful... yet into this time of hopelessness came Isaiah’s prophecy – a day when all God’s people would come together; would forget their differences; would be united in returning to God – gathering at God’s mountain – people from all nations, united in peace and love of the Creator.

And that day becomes God’s day – the day when the Christ comes and God gets in and it is on earth as it is in heaven when all that humanity chooses to follow God’s ways. Living as God’s people, loving, accepting and caring for each other as brothers and sisters, all God’s children.  And living in God’s peace.

And thus giving up arms: turning swords to ploughs; spears to pruning hooks.  And gathering into the light.  This is what we are waiting for – this is the kingdom of God – this is for what we are preparing and we do that by living that way before it actually come, this paradoxical Christian life that has us living in the Christ as the Christ is here and as we wait for the Christ to come.

A fellow preacher this week reflects on this paradox as she writes:  “Imagine how life would feel if we had even a tiny inkling of that! 

Our world is full of violence and war; distrust and corruption; disease and sickness; poverty and injustice.... all things that were also prevalent all those thousands of years ago... the exact situation that Isaiah was talking into.  How can we not relate?!

But how would it be – what hope would we have, if we began to trust in these prophecies?

This advent, as we think about the things we hope for; think about how we can be the change... step-by-step – little-by-little until we can realise that vision.

We may not be able to change the whole world

But we can change our part of it....

Whether we are supporting disaster relief for the people of the Philippines

Or we are praying in solidarity with the people of a tiny wee pub in the city of Glasgow

Or we are coming together, inviting others in, welcoming new people into our fellowship – we need to start somewhere... 

And that is hopeful!

So wait for it – this Kingdom time of God’s for it is in-breaking into the world as I speak.  

A fellow preacher reflects:  “Not that our ancestors waited in stasis. They didn't. They told stories, they sang, they lit candles, they had rituals and prayers and feasts to celebrate the coming of the sun with the solstice. They, with their own liturgy, honored the time of waiting.

In our let's-go-let's-go-let's-go world, we don't huddle around the fire and wait anymore. We keep doing. We don't let winter's darkness coax us into her resting, her waiting. The Church tries. We remind people of the beauty and value of waiting and watching.  Hard as it is to imagine, a season focused on waiting and watching isn't that popular with the secular world.

We clergy talk about Advent and the holiness of waiting. Holy, yes; fun, no. Waiting is annoying. Go to the Department of Motor Vehicles, then tell me how much you like waiting. But…waiting is necessary. It's a vital part of this human experience.  We are quite an impatient species, and yet, we must wait. We must develop and sit quietly and wait. We grow and develop over time, and we must wait while we do so. When we are wounded, either in heart or body, we must wait as we heal. Wait and rest. When we are experiencing a change and shift in our soul, which we all do in our lives, we will gestate and wait until God and our wiser soul-self deems it time for the change to be born.

So waiting, while not fun, is a deeply valuable spiritual discipline.[3]  The meaning is in the waiting – the living in the in between – in between was was, what is and what is to be.  It is a delicate balance this in between time – but we have food to sustain us while we wait – we will share bread and wine and commune with each other in just a few minutes – and we have friends to wait with us as we prepare for the Christ, and ultimately we have God, who breaks into our lives even when we are waiting, supporting, encouraging and just being present.  The meaning of all of this is in the waiting.  Happy Advent everyone!

---

[1] http://fpccozad.blogspot.ca/2013/11/sermon-three-wise-guysor-three-guys-who.html

[2] http://julie-acountrygirl.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/advent-sunday-sermon-december-1st.html

[3] http://www.dirtysexyministry.com/

An Unexpected King

An Unexpected King

November 24 / 2013   Luke 23: 33-43 and  Jeremiah 23: 1-6

What a week!  More scandal stirred up in the Senate, more chaos stirred up in Toronto city hall, more people and resources off the Philippines to help in the rescue efforts and clean up, and more world leaders getting together in Geneva for talks with Iran about Nuclear power.    And it was a week of stirring up memories too - 50 years since the JFK assassination and 50 years since Dr. Who hit the television airways.  And of course the people of Hamilton and the folks from Saskatchewan are all stirred up as it is Grey Cup Weekend.    Did you also know that in some parts of Great Britain this is what this day is called – the last Sunday before Advent – it is called - Stir up Sunday.  Seems like an apt word to use as we reflect on the week as many a thing did get stirred up – from Senator Kennedy being charged with sexual harassment – to Toronto City council voting budget and staff away from the mayor – yet,   “Stir Up Sunday’ actually comes from the medieval collect which is a prayer offered in worship that reads - ‘stir up our hearts we beseech thee..’ when people traditionally stir up and cook their Christmas pudding after church. The story goes that people heard the prayer and knew that Advent was coming and that the steamed fruit pudding should be made in order to mature in time for Christmas.”

When I was a little girl we used to keep this tradition – we had a stir up day too – often it was on a Saturday – but one day in late November my mother would pull down my Grandma Davies fruit cake recipe which was written on the back of an envelope and a very large silver bowl and she would measure and stir chop fruit and nuts and add rum and some flour and mix, mix, mix– until she had a batter – then she would call me and my sisters into the kitchen where we each would take a turn stirring the batter – just a time or two – I remember how heavy the wooden spoon was to stir as the batter was chalked full of fruit - we were told that it would bring us luck for the next year.  Then she would bake the cakes – wrap them in cheese cloth, douse them with more rum, put them in the back of the cupboard and there they would sit until Christmas.

Something is getting stirred up in the church as well – we are changing seasons – today is the last Sunday in ordinary time – as well as the last Sunday of the year.  We are about to embark on Advent – special time in the church– these next four Sundays – as we prepare our hearts and minds to get ready for the Incarnation – to get ready for Christmas – to get ready for the birth of Jesus – God getting into the world.  This day – this last day of the liturgical year – we call this day Christ the King Sunday or Reign of God Sunday – it is a day when consider the power structures of our world and see them not through the lens of the world but through the eyes of God.  

Christ the King Sunday is not an old tradition – it has only been a special day since 1925 when Pope Pius the 11^th realized that Europe’s royal kingdoms where failing and falling fast, the power control that they once had was diminishing.  What was happening was the rise to power of ‘isms’:  fascism, communism, Nazism, capitalism, atheism and secularism– and the men and their governments that are on the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin – a new kind of king that Pius knew would not save the people.  So Pius challenged this new way of finding salvation in the kingdom of communism, fascism, Nazism, socialism, capitalism and proclaimed the last Sunday before advent as “Christ the King” Sunday.  So instead of looking for weak and imperfect human beings to rule the world – we are challenged to ask the question who is really our king, and where do we place our allegiance.  

The kings of the world bear little resemblance to the King we meet today in the Gospel of Luke – and the king we meet today is so unexpected from what the people were waiting for.  

According to Jeremiah, the king will emerge like a shepherd - a righteous branch of David, who will protect the people, they will have no more fear and no one will be lost – this king will rule wisely and Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.  Jeremiah is communicating God’s promise to His people that He will give them good leaders instead of the bad ones who had brought them to tragedy, of being conquered and exiled from their homes and their way of life.  He is reminding the people of what a good and righteous leader is like – he is helping them remember David.

Remember David – the wonderful king – to the people of Jeremiah’s day  David is etched in their brain as the best example ever of a good king – the people of Jesus time know this as well – for to them there has never been a king so good – David the giant slayer, David who brought the arc of the Covenant to Jerusalem, David who ruled Israel and Judah in the time of prosperity and growth.  David the fantastic king – it is from him that, from his line that a new king will come, a king to rule just as David did.  The people are expecting a great and powerful man, to overthrow the Roman powers, to send them scattering back to Italy, to gather all the Hebrew people and to return the temple to its former glory – and the Jewish nation will thrive again under the leadership of this new and wonderful great – great – great – grandson of David.  So it is understandable that the people did not understand who Jesus was when he was in their midst – Jesus was just not what they were expecting.  He slipped into the world – not in palace – but in stable.  He grew up in obscurity, not wandering the halls of the temple with studying the Torah with learned scholars – no – instead he was but by his father’s side, with hammer and nails.  And then when he begins his ministry it is not proclamation to the rich and famous – no – it is in the trenches with the poor and oppressed, the sinner and the prostitute – this was not expected.  And so it is with Jesus – and so it is with God – just when we think we know what we want, just when we think we know what to expect, just when we think we have a handle on who God is and how God is at work in the world something shifts and the true power is not in castle or in a parliament building or even in white house, true power – is on a cross – and in a manger – true power is turning the world around and looking at people in new ways – so that the first come last and the last comes first, and the little child shall lead them and the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.

And this is who we meet today in this out of season passage – yet another unexpected thing as we listen to an Easter Story a month before Christmas. This King – on a cross – even in death – does the unexpected. 

 – for here we have a man on a cross – a man about to die, a man in excruciating pain, offering hope and comfort to another.  We do not hear about human kings being this way, nor very many human beings for that matter.

Edward Markquart writes:  “We try to avoid suffering, often at all costs. When we get the cross put on our back, we often complain, “Why me, God? Why us?” We get angry at God; we become depressed; we become hurt; we no longer believe in God or that God intervenes in our lives.” Isn’t it an interesting quality of human beings that the whole world can be suffering, and we never ask the question, “why;” but when something goes wrong with me, with my family, with my friends, with my loved ones; when something goes wrong with my life, I then ask the question deeply and personally, “Why God? Why me? Why us? Why my loved one? “....?

Today we are at the very mystery of God, the mystery of the universe, at the very heart of the mystery of love.  God chose to experience the place of the greatest pain, the cross.  In the cross, we are meet with the very mystery of God, where God chose not to avoid the suffering of this world.  We hear the statement, “Where suffering is, love is. And where love is, God is.” We are at the very heart of the incomprehensible mystery of God that is symbolized by the cross.”

David Lose writes:  “And this, I think, is the key to ... Christ the King Sunday: to realize that Jesus is not coming to be just one more king (or ruler or president or whatever), but rather that he is ushering in an entirely new order -- a world and order and reign and kingdom characterized by new life, hope, grace and above all love -- the kind of love that never wearies in extending and receiving second chances.”[1]  Unexpected.

This moment as we pause at the end of the Church year and reflect with the Christ on the cross – see the man and his life from the from cradle to cross to tomb and beyond – we remember that we are an Easter people – and that this act – this horrifying gruesome act of human misunderstanding, fear and prejudice – this moment in history – was transformed by God – and became part of the big story of transformation – that of resurrection –

David Lose again:  “This One, you see, strung up by the Empire for treason and insurrection is, as it turns out, not merely challenging the orders of the world but overturning them altogether and establishing a new reign governed not by might, power and judgment but rather by love, mercy and grace. For he is the King, reigning from his unlikely throne, granting second chances to us all.”[2]

As we stir up this Sunday the timing of this morning’s passage is perfect – for here are about embark into our happy season – a season of hope, promise and love – the season where we first meet the Christ child as a baby in a place of innocence – also the season of advent – where the promise of the messiah is contained within the mystery of your faith – that of Christ coming again – and in order to fully understand the significance of that event we need to remember again that the baby in the manger becomes the Christ on the cross – and the Christmas has no meaning without Easter – the king that we crucify is the same one in a manger, one in the desert, by the sea, in the temple, on the cross, in the tomb – and wonder of wonders – alive again.  This great mystery of our faith – baby/cross/tomb and beyond… this wonders of wonders – is God at work in our world and in our lives – the king has come – the king is here – the king will come again…thanks be to God…Amen.

---

[1] David Lose:  http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2879.

[2] Ibid.

lost hope

Lost Hope

November 17 / 2013            Luke 21:5-19 and Isaiah 65:17-25

The new reports this week have been riveting – what with the behaviour of the Toronto mayor and the devastation of the Philippines, in the wake of the typhoon – the pictures emerging from there are bleak and sad and depressing.  It is hard to find hope in situations like that – Mayor Ford seems to be in a hopeless situation – you think that there is nothing more that he can do to damage his reputation farther – but he seems to be able to find new lows to sink to.  And yet – on Friday the afternoon news report was able to move away from the salacious antics of the mayor and focus on some of the work that the Toronto city council has accomplishes over the past week – they passed a unanimous motion to continue with their bike share program, and buy more bikes and create more bike share stations, they presented a financial plan to fund the renovation, upkeep and general maintenance of their social housing in the city – there is hope and the city is rising above its mayor’s behaviour and doing the business it needs to do.  And half way around the world there is hope in the Philippines’ as well as countries from all over the world come together to support and bring aid to the devastated area.  More and more planes filled with food and water and helping hands arrive and begin the very difficult task of rebuilding and restoring and returning the people to their homes – hope is returning in the midst of the devastation – hope, so fragile and yet so strong.

Have you ever lost hope...found yourself in a place that was hopeless or lived through a time of despair.  I have - that’s why you end a marriage because you can’t find any hope in a relationship anymore.  A divorce is about hopelessness. 

Have you ever face the doctor’s words that told you that you or your beloved have a terminal illness, or a chronic illness, or a life changing illness?

Have you ever dreamed a dreamed, and worked hard to obtain that dream yet in spite of all your hard work, in spite of all of your effort, in spite of everything – you fail and the hope of your dream dies.

Or the small things

·         Have you ever bought a lottery ticket and now won?

·         Have you ever hoped for it not to rain on a special day and it did?

·         Have you ever reached your hand into the mailbox hoping of for a cheque and pulled out a bill instead?

·         How about when your children where born – did you hope for a boy and get a girl or hope for a girl and get a boy?

Hope is a strange thing – a fragile thing – and when you read bible messages like the one from Luke this morning – the hope gets lost in the imagery and destructive images Jesus uses to talk to the people about hope.  And yet this morning message is chocked full of hope – it is all about the hope.

Jesus has been in the temple for a while now, he is at the end of his ministry, and this particular passage is placed just prior to the final events in Jesus life that leads to the cross.  Chapter 22 begins with the chief priests seeking ways in which to silence Jesus – it is passages such as the one we heard this morning that are threatening the religious authorities of Jesus day so that they wish to stop the messages even to the point of death.  Stepping out of the Jerusalem situation with our two thousand year old lens to look back at this story it seems a bit extreme – that the words of this itinerate preacher, could cause such discomfort, such unease that death was the solution.  Jesus words in the temple were not blasphemous – nor were they rude or belligerent or even disrespectful – no – Jesus words were hopeful – hopeful words that caused the people who heard them to begin to see things in a different way, and start to question the power and structures and political forces of that time – hopeful words started the people questioning roles of woman and treatment of the poor, and where God was in the world and were God wasn’t – and who could speak for God, and who ultimately had authority.  Words of hope that were beginning to get traction – words of hope that where causing questions – making people uncomfortable and ultimately so threatening the power structures of Jesus time that death was the method of silence.

Today’s reading finds Jesus words of hope in the midst of apocalyptic images – images of the end time – when the structures of the world topple to the ground – and this temple that Jesus is in at the moment these words are spoken – is a really good example of God’s power surpassing human power – that even huge, enormous, beautiful glorious buildings – are destructible.  This temple, Herod’s temple – was admittedly one impressive building.  It is the third temple built on this site:  “Luke and Jesus (and every conceivable ancient audience) knew that the beauty of the Temple was a matter fraught with tension and contradiction. The Temple was stunning. The Temple was huge. Paula Fredriksen notes that the outer court could hold 400,000 people, and further notes that, at festival times, it frequently held crowds nearly that large. The Temple was overwhelming, as befits the building that honors the God who alone is God. 

And the Temple was beautiful because Herod, that Roman stooge who styled himself as King of the Jews, had spent massive amounts of money making it beautiful. Herod, that vicious and brutal despot known as much for his private slaughter of his family members as for his acts of public largesse, had built up the Temple so that it would rival pagan temples built up by rival rulers. Faithful Jews knew the Temple testified to God’s unique majesty. They also knew that the beautification project was meant to bring glory to Herod, that grandson of converts whom the rabbis refused to acknowledge as Jewish. Nobody that brutal, that barbaric, that pagan, can belong to the family of the faithful.

Jesus’ words, therefore, about the leveling of the Temple, not one stone on another, would have had a double bite. On the one hand, that leveling (even at the hands of Rome) would remove the Herodian blot from the holy city. On the other hand, the Temple was the Temple, and not even Herod’s pagan corruption could change that.”[1]

And these large stones and big beautiful ramparts and walkways – that seemed impossible that they could ever be over turned and yet sixteen years after completion – they were – never to be raised again – or at least to this time almost two thousand years later.  Cause that’s how it is with human things, they don’t last.

These are end time images – apocalyptic  - the end of the temple, and all it stands for, the end of society, the end of world as they knew it.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes:  Maybe you already know that the world “apocalypse” means revelations as in that moment when you are looking at something you have looked at half your life and suddenly you see it for the first time, whether it is the sun coming up through the trees like an iridescent peach or the sorrow in your neighbours’s eyes or your own face looking back at you in the mirror.  Revelation is the moment when you can see through , see into, see beyond what is going on to what is really going on- not because your are some kind of genius but because God decided to let you, and you happened to be paying attention at the time.”[2]

Jesus apocalyptic message of hope – of something new, of something different, of something God in the midst of the end.  Close to the end of the epic journey of Frodo and Sam as written in Lord of the Rings, Frodo the hobbit has reached the place of hopelessness – has come to the end of his line and wants to stop – he says:  

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

There is good in this world –and that is worth fighting for – that is what keeps you going with the going gets tough – that is where hope is – when all the world looks bleak and doomed – where everything around you seems to be falling apart – when it seems as it is ended and it is over – it is not – because this is just the place that God gets in and something shifts and out of the bleakness, out of the darkness, out of the hopelessness – the light returns.

I see a new heaven, I see a new earth ...writes Isaiah – something new is on the horizon – it is a pretty impressive claim for Isaiah to make – the world has not been all that wonderful of late for the people of God – they had been conquered by the Babylonians, forced from their homes and places of business, and their land, the Babylonians were in turn conquered by the Persians – and the people of God were then freed to go back – to go back to Jerusalem, to rebuild what they once had, to build homes and re-establish business and to restore what was left of the temple to its former glory.  It is in the midst of this rebuilding that the hopeful images of Isaiah are written – speaking of the world as God would have it, telling of time that the Kingdom comes and God’s will is done

·         Delighting people

·         Children living a full and rich life

·         People living to ripe old ages

·         Being able to reap what you plant and eat what you sow

·         Living in home

·         And the lion and the lamb will lie down together – symbolizing peace and justice and hope

Hope – the people live in hope – God’s hope – God’s kingdom.

Jesus boldly declared, again and again, that the new heavens and new earth were already happening, that God’s kingdom was even then in our midst, though still yet to come in its fullness. The seeds that would lead to the kingdom’s flowering and abundant harvest had been planted everywhere and could not be stopped from germinating and spreading. The signs of this promise are all around us if we have eyes to see them and ears to hear them. Ours is to call attention to those signs, nurture them into full blossom wherever and however we can, and rejoice to bring in the harvest.

There is good in this world, and it is worth fighting for, when it seems as it is ended and it is over – it is not – because this is just the place that God gets in and something shifts and out of the bleakness, out of the darkness, out of the hopelessness – the light returns.  To live this kingdom life – is to see the hope, to share the joy and to know that God is with us – we are never alone.

---

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1853

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor:  Apocalyptic Figs