Worth the Wait
We don't wait much for Christmas anymore do we? Truth is...we don't wait for much of anything anymore.
Don't get me wrong, I too can feel it in the air and am eager to dig out the old Amy Grant albums. I can't wait to fill my house with the smell of that live tree and unpack the box of treasures that has grown plump with memories as our family has bloomed.
I guess I just wonder what we're missing...rushing right to the holly boughs the minute the pumpkins hit the compost bin. We're missing something...aren't we?
My middle girl keeps walking through stores with wide-eyed incredulity. "Mom!" she gasps with a giggle, "They must think it's already Christmas!"
Yes sweet girl they must. But it isn't. And what it is, I realize...is something just as wonderful.
It's Advent.
I've been trying to understand what that means over the past month and a half as I struggle to put concrete words to abstract thought. This Fall as my heart began to stir again towards the season of Advent, I knew things needed to change. In my home and in my heart. What exactly was Advent? What was its original purpose...and what had it become?
Did you know Advent began as a season of fasting? Sure, that was the 4th century and in later years the Roman Catholic church abolished that precept, but still it remained a season of penitence.
Penitence? Fasting?
Fasting.
Is that a word that comes to mind when you consider the calendar days between...oh I don't know, late October and Christmas Eve?
Surely not fasting. I could think of other words though. Indulgence comes to mind...lavishness maybe? Perhaps feasting?
Even in my desire to make Advent a "Gospel Thing" in my home I see the ways I have made much of "preparation," and jumped the gun to "celebration." I watch our best intentions...MY OWN BEST INTENTIONS...threaten to reduce Advent to an extended season of "What did we get?" "What's in the box?" (read gimme gimme gimme). I'm guilty.
I understand the necessity of "preparation" here. I want my kids to know the story...the Big God Story...and how we get from Let there be Light to The true Light that gives Light to every man was coming into the world. Oh yes, Advent is definitely a season of heart preparation.
But what of the "wait?"
Four hundred years of silence followed the last words of the prophet Malachi, heralding the coming of one who would prepare the way for God Himself. The messenger of the Covenant who would ready the stage for the arrival of the Rescuer.
Four Hundred Years. That kind of silence is deafening, isn't it? I wonder if we can ever understand that kind of waiting. If we can ever occupy that space in a way that changes us? But God's people had no choice. They knew not the fullness of the Gift to come, yet they believed the promise and so by faith they waited. And waited.
Lifetimes upon lifetimes.
Can you feel it? The weight of that wait? The agony, the expectation, the longing for a Saviour? I know it's hard to go there...having "tasted and seen that the Lord is good..."
Even so, I wonder if there isn't a treasure of good to come from trying. To submit yourself for a season to that deafening silence. To kneel in the midst of that dark time and feel the agony of longing; the choking pain of need. To anticipate Light and hope beyond hope for a Saviour to come.
Can you taste it? Can you taste the blood, sweat and tears overflowing out of those four hundred silent years? Can you sense the desperation, the near hopelessness? Can you endure those 400 plus years facedown on that dry and dusty road, soul parched and withering until the moment, that moment that the palm branches start falling around you, and cloaks are stripped off to cover the dirt and you rise slowly from your knees, your own feeble voice joining the throngs crying out, "Hosanna! Save now!" Save. Now. We're desperate. We've waited over 400 years and our cry couldn't be more urgent...Hosanna! Save. Now. We need you. And we've been waiting.
I'm trying. Trying to linger there a bit rather than rush headlong into Christmas. Trying to fast self-indulgence and feast on poverty of soul instead. To understand what it might look like to wait intentionally with anticipation, repentance, worship and expectation through the season of Advent.
And you know what? It's opening my eyes to the depth of my need. To all the ways I need to be saved and how badly this world needs to be made right again. We need that manger to be filled...we need that baby to come. He has come, and He will come again.
So we're holding off on the Christmas carols for a bit. The red and green will eventually appear, but we'll soak in the blues and purples first. We'll go cut down our tree, and once again it'll be slim pickings by the time we get there. But piece by piece, one day at a time, instead of counting down to Christmas, we are going to build up to it through Advent.
We're gonna wait.
Do you need Him too? There's hope...He's coming!
Wait for it.
Don't get me wrong, I too can feel it in the air and am eager to dig out the old Amy Grant albums. I can't wait to fill my house with the smell of that live tree and unpack the box of treasures that has grown plump with memories as our family has bloomed.
I guess I just wonder what we're missing...rushing right to the holly boughs the minute the pumpkins hit the compost bin. We're missing something...aren't we?
My middle girl keeps walking through stores with wide-eyed incredulity. "Mom!" she gasps with a giggle, "They must think it's already Christmas!"
Yes sweet girl they must. But it isn't. And what it is, I realize...is something just as wonderful.
It's Advent.
I've been trying to understand what that means over the past month and a half as I struggle to put concrete words to abstract thought. This Fall as my heart began to stir again towards the season of Advent, I knew things needed to change. In my home and in my heart. What exactly was Advent? What was its original purpose...and what had it become?
Did you know Advent began as a season of fasting? Sure, that was the 4th century and in later years the Roman Catholic church abolished that precept, but still it remained a season of penitence.
Penitence? Fasting?
Fasting.
Is that a word that comes to mind when you consider the calendar days between...oh I don't know, late October and Christmas Eve?
Surely not fasting. I could think of other words though. Indulgence comes to mind...lavishness maybe? Perhaps feasting?
Even in my desire to make Advent a "Gospel Thing" in my home I see the ways I have made much of "preparation," and jumped the gun to "celebration." I watch our best intentions...MY OWN BEST INTENTIONS...threaten to reduce Advent to an extended season of "What did we get?" "What's in the box?" (read gimme gimme gimme). I'm guilty.
I understand the necessity of "preparation" here. I want my kids to know the story...the Big God Story...and how we get from Let there be Light to The true Light that gives Light to every man was coming into the world. Oh yes, Advent is definitely a season of heart preparation.
But what of the "wait?"
Four hundred years of silence followed the last words of the prophet Malachi, heralding the coming of one who would prepare the way for God Himself. The messenger of the Covenant who would ready the stage for the arrival of the Rescuer.
Four Hundred Years. That kind of silence is deafening, isn't it? I wonder if we can ever understand that kind of waiting. If we can ever occupy that space in a way that changes us? But God's people had no choice. They knew not the fullness of the Gift to come, yet they believed the promise and so by faith they waited. And waited.
Lifetimes upon lifetimes.
Can you feel it? The weight of that wait? The agony, the expectation, the longing for a Saviour? I know it's hard to go there...having "tasted and seen that the Lord is good..."
Even so, I wonder if there isn't a treasure of good to come from trying. To submit yourself for a season to that deafening silence. To kneel in the midst of that dark time and feel the agony of longing; the choking pain of need. To anticipate Light and hope beyond hope for a Saviour to come.
Can you taste it? Can you taste the blood, sweat and tears overflowing out of those four hundred silent years? Can you sense the desperation, the near hopelessness? Can you endure those 400 plus years facedown on that dry and dusty road, soul parched and withering until the moment, that moment that the palm branches start falling around you, and cloaks are stripped off to cover the dirt and you rise slowly from your knees, your own feeble voice joining the throngs crying out, "Hosanna! Save now!" Save. Now. We're desperate. We've waited over 400 years and our cry couldn't be more urgent...Hosanna! Save. Now. We need you. And we've been waiting.
I'm trying. Trying to linger there a bit rather than rush headlong into Christmas. Trying to fast self-indulgence and feast on poverty of soul instead. To understand what it might look like to wait intentionally with anticipation, repentance, worship and expectation through the season of Advent.
And you know what? It's opening my eyes to the depth of my need. To all the ways I need to be saved and how badly this world needs to be made right again. We need that manger to be filled...we need that baby to come. He has come, and He will come again.
So we're holding off on the Christmas carols for a bit. The red and green will eventually appear, but we'll soak in the blues and purples first. We'll go cut down our tree, and once again it'll be slim pickings by the time we get there. But piece by piece, one day at a time, instead of counting down to Christmas, we are going to build up to it through Advent.
We're gonna wait.
Do you need Him too? There's hope...He's coming!
Wait for it.
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