Waiting is really hard, and yet so much of life is about waiting. Waiting in traffic, waiting in lines, waiting for the new movie to come out in the theatre, waiting for a friendship, waiting for summer, waiting for Christmas.Waiting gets old, doesn't it? It's so easy to grow impatient and let emotions spill over. When we feel like we've been waiting too long, we begin to protest in our own ways. Adults are not immune to acting like 3 year olds when the waiting has made us weary.
Advent is a gift to us...it gives room for the weary at heart. It says "yes, waiting is hard, but there is something worth waiting for..." And we are given space to grieve, lament, and take heart once again...that while sometimes there is complete silence, other times we see that God really does still act in our world. After 400 years of silence, the Israelites must have been weary of waiting for the Messiah.
They had anticipated that God was sending a Messiah (a savior), but they endured SILENCE for 400 years!!!
Where are you God?
Where are you now?
Why are you silent?
Why have you abandoned us?
Did they wait well?
Ha! Do we wait well?
We all have our moments when we are composed and able to wait. We know that it will take several hours to sit at immigration in Thailand when it's time to renew our visas...so we bring our homework, our work, our phones...and we distract ourselves. We sigh, we wait, and eventually our number is called and we are finished. The waiting does end.
But what about waiting that has no end in sight? We have NO IDEA how long we will wait. It's like waiting at that immigration office day after day after day and each day being told, not yet...go home. Come again tomorrow. That is enough to drive any of us mad. Even the most patient person.
Perhaps that is the point. None of us are patient in and of ourselves. Even the act of waiting requires us to depend on God. And it brings us to the end of ourselves, the end of our own human resources. It reminds us that we need the Very One we are waiting for. We need help to wait...
Advent gives space to the voice of longing. Can any of us say that there is NOTHING we are waiting for? Perhaps we are not aware of what we are longing for because it has been too painful to wait.
Waiting for a job
Waiting for a baby
Waiting for healing
Waiting for the grief to lighten
Waiting for someone to return to us
Waiting to be loved
Waiting.
It's not easy to wait. And it's no wonder that the Israelites gave up and distracted themselves with their own ideas of how to fix their problems. But, even in their forgetfulness and distraction, God still came. It wasn't because they waited well that finally God breathed Life into the midst of our human condition. No, perhaps the miracle is all the more because they had stopped waiting, stopped looking...
and then God moved
I don't begin to understand what all this means
But I welcome the space to pause in Advent, because I need it. For those of us who don't find it easy to pretend all is well, advent is a welcome gift. It gives voice to longing. It allows us to know we are not forgotten in the long waiting. God has not forgotten me. God has not forgotten you. Though we look around at the condition of our world, groaning for its relief and redemption, we are reminded at Advent that God enters in.
One of my favorite Advent songs this year has been Immanuel by the Liturgists...here are the lyrics
Immanuel by Liturgists
Carry me to the place unknown
Where the river runs so deep
Where the water cold washes over me
And I all but drown in Your mercy.
Carry me from this hell called home
Where the walls like shepherds sleep
Congregations fall from the Gospel's heart
To the desert of prosperity.
Immanuel
God with us
Where are you now?
Immanuel
God with us
Be here somehow.
Lift me up to the place unknown
In the shadow of Your wings
Where I'm safe from harm
Hidden in Your arms
Never far from the sound of your breathing.
Oh lift me up from this hell called home
Where the blood of children speaks
Of the wars we've made
Of the lives we trade
For this desert of prosperity
For this desert of prosperity
Immanuel
God with us
Where are you now?
Immanuel
Our God with us
Be here somehow.
Immanuel
God with us,
Where are you now?
Immanuel
God with us,
Where are you now?
Immanuel
God with us
Be here somehow
God with us,
Be here somehow.
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