Wait

Advent means the season of “waiting.”

It was put in our Christian liturgical calendar on purpose, for it’s in waiting that we build anticipation, and thus we learn to appreciate the gift. Not just in waiting for our presents, but a season where we remember that we didn’t always have a savior.

During advent, we are given the chance to look with new eyes on our faith. We remember a time when our world was without grace. We remember the anticipation of the prophets as the world crumbled around them. We remember the surprise of Elizabeth and Zechariah as they waited for an unexpected act of generosity. We remember the anxiety of Mary turned to unspeakable joy at Gabriel’s announcement. We remember the beginning of the tension between two kingdoms as Herod wrestled with how to respond to the inquiries of the Magi.

And then the dawn breaks and hope arrives, quietly, slowly, unexpectedly.

But it wouldn’t mean anything without the waiting.

This season is our chance to wrestle, to spend the time in the desert so that we see again the value of the oasis. It would do us well, those who live in a culture of such wealth, to learn the value of waiting, of seasons of poverty between seasons of prosperity, of fasting before the feast.

This is the challenge before me, and I believe many of us, this year; to see the value of the season despite all the external trappings foisted on it over the years.

In advent, we spend time remembering that it is our fallen humanity that Jesus came to redeem, and that it is by taking on our skin and our state of being that He redeemed it. Yes, the Cross is important; but it is in the incarnation itself, in God moving into a zip code in skin and sandals, that God began redeeming a broken world. Rather than imposing improvement from the outside, Love came quietly to begin the process of restoration from within, from among us.

And that is worth the wait.

Merry Christmas …