I Can’t Get No…
“Waiting is vigilance plus expectation; it is wide awake to God.”
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon
Advent stands between the Son of God's two arrivals. The first arrival, God's bursting into our dark world in incarnation and condescension, we celebrate each Christmas. The second we've yet to see. We live our lives in anticipation and expectation of it. In this way, Advent, like the life of the Christian, is a season of contrast and resistance. It is shockingly a dissatisfied life.
We, a people claimed by and set apart by God, continue to exist in a place of sin, darkness, and death. We have every reason to rejoice and to mourn all at once. We are infused with God's presence but long for it still. We are healed but broken, alive but dying, righteous, but sinful. We are exiles. We are dissatisfied.
In this state, we face two temptations: deny the darkness or submit to it.
Advent helps us avoid these temptations by asking us to stretch our memories back to all that God has done for us as a people while confronting the shadows stretching across the world, our lives, and our hearts. As exiles, we can look back and long for God's presence to manifest itself in a powerful and meaningful way. The memory moves us to resist the darkness. We rail against the night, insisting darkness is not all there is. We yearn for deliverance, for God's arrival. It is a season of sorrow and joy mingled together into longing, into hope.
As much as Advent reminds us of the darkness surrounding us, it is also a season of moving towards the light. This hope we have is not optimistic. It is not the realization that things are not as bad as they seem. And we need to be reminded that there is consistent confusion these days between hope and optimism. It is common to understand hope as an adjustment to your mindset, a shift in your perspective. Just stay positive. This way of thinking commonly rears its head in the sentiment that everything happens for a reason. But this sort of hope is not what the scriptures describe. Fleming Rutledge plainly tells us, "optimism often arises out of denial of the real facts, hope however, persists in spite of the clearly recognized facts because it is anchored in something beyond."
And therein lies the difference. Optimism lives in denial of darkness, hope in denial that darkness is all there is. Christian hope maintains that the God of Light has come and will come again, and both arrivals plunder the darkness, taking back and restoring all that belongs to the Light.
This hope is concretely rooted in the earth-shattering reality that the God who is outside of this mess has entered into it to restore it. This hope rests on Jesus' first coming, His life, death and resurrection, and the endowment of His Spirit that resides within us this very moment. The Light has already come! We have tasted and seen it for ourselves, and this glimpse carries us on to watch for it in fullness.
Yet as we enter the middle of Advent, life has had time to infringe on our reflection of Jesus' coming. The clamor and demand of parties, family, shopping, etc., has likely encroached on and crowded out our sense of purpose and wonder.
The trap we easily fall into a few weeks before Christmas is once again returning our hope to the things we so often believe give us life. We look forward to bonuses, promotions, or even food and drink to satiate our longing hearts. The discontent stirred by Advent's reminders grows stale. This, too, is darkness. The subtle ploy lulls us into a sense of false contentment. We forget for a moment how shattered the world around us is.
Yet Advent speaks to our indifference to God's coming as well and redirects us to hope. "Could you not stay awake and keep watch with me for one hour? (Matt. 26:40)" We can feel the numbness, and we cry, "How long, O' Lord?! Will you forget me forever?! How long will you hide your face from me?!" The distractions let us down like they always do, and the return of deep longing follows the sudden surge of superficial delight. Our numbness wakes us up to our need for God to show up.
We do not deny the darkness. We do not submit to the darkness. We hope.
Waiting on God as discontent exiles, we hope.
Jesus models this for us. Like Jesus, we wait for God with quiet hearts, simplified lives, living as children. Brennan Manning, the outcast priest, and author of the Raggamuffin Gospel, says that Jesus teaches us to be like children not because they are innocent but because they are helpless. Jesus assures us that in the arms of God, we find safety, love, and strength beyond anything we could muster ourselves. Even as we wait in the darkness, the Light carries us. So we, like children, in dependence and helplessness, find the life, peace, power, and wholeness we spend so much of our lives searching for.
In our stillness, we finally arrive at everything our striving was trying to get at. We do not deny the darkness. We do not submit to the night. We wait patiently, with discontent, expectantly for the dawn. And here is hope. It is satisfaction amid dissatisfaction.
Join us Christmas Eve at 5pm & 11pm as we gather together to worship and rejoice in celebration of Jesus’ coming into the world.
We've created a playlist to accompany you on your prayer and reflection during Advent. The songs are meant to speak to yearning, dissatisfaction, and Jesus' second coming. You can find it here.
