We didn't celebrate advent growing up. My church did not have an advent wreath or light candles. We didn't talk about preparing ourselves for Christmas day and the birth of Christ. We didn't focus on what it meant to prepare and to wait patiently. It wasn't until my senior year in college that I learned about advent. I learned about the four Sundays (hope, peace, joy, and love), each one having a specific meaning and a candle lit for each. I learned what it meant but it wasn't until Lacy was pregnant that I fully connected with advent. Since then, this time of year has become one of my favorites.
Advent is about patiently waiting for the birth of Christ. One would think that we are used to waiting; we've been waiting for a very long time. But we're not waiting in the same way or in the same hope that Israel was waiting. We've turn our waiting to be about a return and a reward. Their waiting, more pure in my opinion, was about a rescue. Israel was waiting, wishing and a hoping that a savior would rise from their streets and rescue them for exile. They hoped for a messiah to take them back to the promise land. They hoped to return home.
Isaiah 64 is a beautiful prayer before God. In it, Israel admits turning away from God because God hid. They admit there is no one who calls God's name or attempts to take hold of him. Isaiah remembers that there was once a time when God would do awesome deeds that they did not expect. God would come down and the mountains would quake at his presence. He knows from ages past that no one has heard or perceived. He asks for God to tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would once again quake in God's presence. He wishes for God to make his name known to the people.
Isaiah wonders how long until God will come to them. He wonders if and when God will rescue Israel from exile. He wonders; yet he pronounces a new hope for Israel. He knows that God is their Father; they are the clay and God is the potter. He knows they are the work of God's own hand. Isaiah has hope, but he will need patience. God is going to rescue them. God is sending the Messiah. God is taking his time.
God does not hurry. God doesn't have a delivery time of 30 minutes or less. God doesn't rush things. God takes his sweet time. We are stuck in the waiting place for people just waiting. “Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting for a Yes or No or their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.” The waiting place. The place we, you know, wait and wait and wait. The place Dr. Seuss says is the most useless place. The waiting place.
But those waiting in the waiting place are waiting “for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a better break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.” We are not. We are not in a useless place. We are sitting and waiting for better breaks, another chance, or a pot to boil. There is no hope in Dr. Seuss' waiting place. There is hope in ours. Our waiting place is the hope of Advent.
And yet, the waiting place can feel dark and lonely and absent of hope. It can feel like you are trapped in a mine shaft two miles beneath the earth's surface, waiting for the rescue team to find you. But it is not useless. This time, this season is a season to wait and prepare. A time to have our hearts and minds renewed in the hope of Christ. We are being asked to wait patiently.
We are a culture of hurry. The proof's in the pudding as they would say. Whatever that means and whoever “they” are. We have everything we could want provided to us within a second. In a hurry to eat? Stop at McDonald's and get your meal in 30 seconds! Need to get a message to someone who talks a lot but you don't have time to talk or just don't want to? Text them. Carpet dirty and you want to vacuum but don't have the time? Get a Roomba, robotic vacuum cleaner. I think you get my point.
It's counter-culture to ask you to wait patiently. We are not a patient people in a America. We do not wait well. A sign at one of my favorite BBQ joints in Richmond reads, “This is BBQ. It is slow cooked and it is a slow process. It's not fast food. It's not McDonald's. Have a sit on the bench and relax. It's worth the wait.”
We're just beginning our time of waiting. The season will fly by and soon we will gather on Christmas Eve and sing “Silent Night” while lighting candles. Soon, children will rush down the stairs and rapidly tear through their presents, passing out like Randy in A Christmas Story afterward. Soon, Christmas will be over and we will ask ourselves, “Where did it go?” With a blink of an eye it will be over.
The Son of God did not come to us in a hurry. God did not rush to save Israel. Generations after being promised, he arrived and spent nine months gestating in Mary's womb. Then he spent 30 years growing up, learning to possess a strange patience that will cause him to stop and talk to a woman who touched him on his way to heal Jairus' daughter. Even when he was here, Jesus did not hurry. It's amazing how fast we have to move. It's amazing that we know how much stress is caused because we feel rushed; yet we do nothing to alternate that lifestyle. Perhaps this season of Advent and the winter time is God's way of saying, “Slow down because you're about to miss it.
The scriptures teach us that those who wait on the Lord will have their strength renewed. Despite what we think, God doesn't help those who help themselves. When we rush, when we do not wait patiently, our hope begins to drain. We become cynical while standing in the long lines at the store. We become cynical when we see the Salvation Army ringing their bells. When we rush, when we do not slow done, we miss all that God is doing. It would seem to me to then, if God tells us to wait patiently, that if wait with patient waiting in the waiting place, our hope will be renewed, our strength renewed, our minds renewed. Our eyes given better sight, our ears better hearing, our hearts are changed in the waiting place. Knowing the initiative is in God's hands. The waiting place confirms that someone somewhere loves us enough to make all things new. Perhaps then we will finally see how God is making all things new and hear the boom-boom bands with better ears.
It is the beginning of Advent and God is saying, “Slow down. Something amazing is happening. Whether today or tomorrow, something amazing is happening. Slow down, you will not want to miss it.” In the words of Barney Stinson, “Wait for it...”
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