What are you waiting for?
It’s the quintessential Advent question.
Everyone seems to be waiting for something.
Or someone.
Are you waiting for the new year?
For less stress and anxiety?
Renewed health?
A sense of peace?
Hope?
Deeper relationships?
Healing?
Safety?
The treasured gift on your Christmas list?
Snow?
Love?
The birth of the Christ child?
Our lives are full of waiting, of endings and beginnings sometimes happening all at once.
Our lives know the depth of waiting, lament and hope mixed throughout our days.
We know what it means to wait:
To feel uncertain and frustrated and impatient.
To be hopeful.
To have sleepless nights.
To wonder if we’ll ever have the answers we need.
In the midst of our waiting, the church invites us to experience the season, to savor the four weeks before Christmas, to wait for the Christ child to be born, to wait for Jesus to come again.
The church gives us the gift of Advent.
This year I’ve been asking a different question.
Actually, it’s not even a question. It’s a realization I’ve come to experience.
December is waiting for us.
Advent is waiting for us.
I believe there’s something hidden in December.
Underneath the short days and long nights, the coming cold and snow, I believe December and Advent hold more for us.
December greets us with its Advent hymns, the candles adding light into the darkness, the longing and the waiting. We wait all year for this month. December waits all year for us.
The end of the year, the beginning of hope, a lifetime of lessons to unpack.
Advent greets us with the prophets fiery indignation. Advent calls us to see our world as God intends. Advent stirs in us the justice of a God who stands on the side of the outcast and outsider. Advent compels us to use our voice in bearing hope.
Advent waits for us.
Like the evergreen tree, green needles gleaming, December’s Advent stands tall, arms wide open anticipating our acceptance of the invitation.
Advent asking us to be present.
Advent asking us to sit for a while.
Advent asking us to remember.
Advent asking us to remember power in the form of a child in a manger.
Advent asking us to be the light for all God’s people.
Perhaps, just perhaps, we’ll get a hint of the light.
Come and peer into the light—
Advent is waiting for you.
