Advent
I’ve been thinking a lot about Advent this week. It’s one part of the church year the draws me in and makes me think about things that don’t come normal to me. Since it’s been on my mind I’ve seen traces of it and of the Christmas story all over my day to day life this week. There are real words that Advent focuses on (Peace, Joy, Hope, Love) but the point of these weeks is that Christmas is coming.
Advent is about waiting…
One of my dearest friends had her first baby this week and they didn’t know if would be a boy or girl. And they entered a season of waiting, of anticipating, of being excited. So naturally as BFF’s do we had talked about the baby for many months. I’ve speculated about names with her and tried to picture what it would be like if they had a girl or boy. And finally the waiting ended and they now have a daughter. So beautiful and amazing and I just can’t stop smiling when I think about their family of 3 now.
Some other dear friends received horrible news about a month ago that their precious little girl had a tumor. And they immediately entered a season of waiting, of questioning, of not sleeping, of wishing for a miracle. Over these past few weeks I couldn’t think of my little friend without feeling hopeless and nervous about what was happening in her body. The news is good though and so far God has orchestrated a miracle in their lives. Talking with my friend this morning she said “We have waited to see how this would play out and now we are changed. We can’t waste this experience.”
Very different seasons of waiting…but none the less it’s waiting…
Rob Bell writes about advent, and this screamed at me this morning when I read it:
Advent confronts this corrosion of the heart with the insistence that God has not abandoned the world, hope is real and something is coming.
Advent charges into the temple of cynicism with a whip of hope, overturning the tables of despair, driving out the priests of that jaded cult, announcing there’s a new day and it’s not like the one that came before it.
“The not yet will be worth it,” Advent whispers in the dark.
Old man Simeon stands in the temple, holding the Christ child, rejoicing that now he can die because what he’d been waiting for actually arrived.
And so each December (though Advent starts the last Sunday of November this year), we enter into a season of waiting, expecting, longing. Spirit meets us in the ache.
We ask God to enter into the deepest places of cynicism, bitterness and hardness where we have stopped believing that tomorrow can be better than today.
We open up. We soften up. We turn our hearts in the direction of that day. That day when the baby cries His first cry and we, surrounded by shepherds and angels and everybody in between, celebrate that sound in time that brings our Spirits what we’ve been longing for.
The theme to the Christmas services at the church that I work at revolves around the idea of wishing for the impossible. And I can’t help but think about the people that will come onto our campus this season who are waiting and wishing for a miracle. What they are waiting for is Christ.
So today, that is why I love Advent. It reminds me that Christ is coming, just wait and be confident that “the not yet will be worth it”.
