Wait...What?

It's Advent. At Candler, we have been “doing” all of advent in this one week. Each service has been very meaningful and I guess it makes sense to go all the way through it (celebrate all 4 weeks in 4 days) this last week of class, but there is something strangely ironic about that (as a friend of mine pointed out).

Advent is a time of preparation, expectation, and waiting. Waiting has been the key word of the week. I've heard it in almost every prayer, song, and message the past three days. It is clearly being presented as a central characteristic of the season of Advent. But what part of waiting lets us cram 4 weeks of expectation into 4 days? The word advent itself means arrival, which only complicates this more. Is advent really about waiting, or is it about arriving? Or can we somehow hold both of these things together in harmony?

On top of this, it is Christmas, at least as far as culture is concerned. In fact, it would seem that we are already about half-way through Christmas. There is no waiting for Christmas in America. We necessarily cope with a temporal existence, but we do everything we can to overcome that when Christmas approaches each year, forcefully making this holiday arrive ever sooner.

Drew this in paint a long time ago.

Waiting. The only other time I have ever heard this word preached so passionately was in sex-ed in middle and high school. In that context it was abstinence that meant waiting and maybe even “saving” yourself. I don't think I need to highlight the religious connotation there. But the fact that waiting or abstaining was harped on so much betrays the fact that we are people who cannot stand to wait.

And who can blame us? Why wait for something that is allegedly so good, so pleasant? It's not like we can't wait to go kill someone; we can't wait for Christmas – the conception and birth of God in this world, not to mention the jolly and holly and family and gifts. Even when we remove the cultural 'aberrations' of Christmas (i.e. materiality, uninhibited consumption, selfish fulfillment) we still can't wait, and we still can't wait for something good – the celebration of the miracle of Incarnation, of God fully participating in humanity.

So, why wait? We shouldn't be desiring to forestall that long expected day when Christ comes/returns, right? I agree. It's Advent; it is Arriving. We shouldn't be waiting for God's Kingdom to magically pop up. We shouldn't be sitting in apathy waiting for God to do something. Heck, God already has. We aren't waiting for the Incarnation all over again. That happened. Humanity had to wait for that once, but we can't now. God has come; God's Kingdom has been set in motion. If anything, we desperately need to be playing catch-up.

Similarly, we do not wait for some rocket to come and take us off to a better place. We live in a world that has already been (physically) touched by the divine, the Kingdom is here, there is no more waiting for that. Instead, there is action, there is joining in the activity of that Kingdom without hesitancy. We are called to drop our nets and plows without looking back and immediately follow (at least most of the time).

So, what do we wait for? Or, maybe the better question is what don't we wait for (that we should be waiting for)? We (should) wait for God. The previous position essentially asserts the same thing, but where this differs is that we wait for God's guidance. Instead of taking and consuming forcefully and uninhibitedly, maybe we should wait and listen for where God is leading us. Maybe we should stop raping Christmas to see what we can get out of it - to force that height of sensory pleasure into the illusive present. Maybe this waiting is a little like abstinence, where we first cultivate a meaningful relationship with the one we love, listening with reverence and laughing with joy in that one's presence. I think this is the only way we can truly fulfill the not-waiting we need to be doing in joining in God's ongoing activity.

Wait, like the Magi, who were finally guided by the star into the presence of Christ. This waiting cuts through the busyness of our lives, especially at this season, and allows us time to peer into the heavens to see where God wants us to go.

I think John the Baptist is the perfect example of this, and that it is no coincidence that he is the quintessential figure of Advent, in my humble opinion. Baby Jesus can, and must, have center stage at Christmas, but however much we anticipate Jesus, John must have (a share in) the spotlight in Advent (if for no other reason than John was alive at that point, while Jesus was still a weird alien/frog looking clump of cells in Mary's womb). (Although I am fully aware that John would probably deny such a focus on himself, which is even more reason to exemplify him at this time of year.)

John shows us what it means to wait – to live a transformed life now while ever looking for (and finding) Jesus. He shows us what it means to have feet rooted in the sacred running river waters of repentance, consenting to the commands of Christ and opening an avenue for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit - all while reveling in the presence of God (Matthew 3). John wasn't apathetic – he was at work preparing the way of the Lord; nor was he busied or forceful (although some of his language may have come across a little forcefully) – he was receptive to Christ. He knew that we should be doing something, but that that something should be filling us with expectation that opens us to the presence of Christ (Luke 3:10-16).

Maybe instead of trying to force ourselves into Christmas and Christmas into our already busy lives, we should let the Holy Spirit clear our threshing floors and gather our hearts and minds like grain into the already come kingdom and presence of Christ. Advent is not about impregnating Mary or rebirthing Jesus over and over again – it is about participating in His already completed Incarnation, baptizing our expectant eyes and ears to be more receptive to Christ's commands, and going and doing what we must for the further expression of God's Kingdom.

What is more exciting than such waiting?

My favorite Advent song: