Pr. Michelle Sevig
Third Sunday of Advent
December 12/13, 2020
Waiting…Hoping
I remember when my kids were younger and how eagerly they waited for Christmas to arrive using an Advent calendar to count down the days. There’s something painful, yet delicious about a child waiting for Christmas, wishing and hoping, until December 24th, when the cookies are set out for Santa, and the children fall asleep with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.
We wait with anticipation and hope for many things throughout our lives. We wait to be old enough to go to school, ride a bike, drive a car, go to college. We wait to land a job or find the right person. We wait for a promotion, a raise, or retirement. Waiting is a universal human experience.
I learned this week that in Hebrew, the word for wait and the word for hope are the same, which gave me new insight/understanding for when we sing “Wait for the Lord, the day is near. Wait for the Lord. Be strong; take heart.” During Advent, we are waiting for Christ to dwell among us. Our longing is hope-filled, and expectant, as we yearn for all of creation to live in the fullness of God.
In an article from the Christian Century, Richard Lescher writes this about the season of Advent: “Before Advent is a word, it is a sigh. A voice crying. A mood. And never more deeply felt than in these troubled months. Advent marks both the exhaustion and the hope of God’s people.” To me, and maybe you too, it seems as if we’ve been in perpetual Advent these past 9 months. Deep and frequent sighs, unexpected tears. “A mood” to be sure.
We are waiting--dreading--what health experts say will be our “darkest winter” as COVID-19 spikes and spreads across our nation. We are always waiting for Christmas, of course, but this year will be different without grandparents, cousins and chosen family gathered around the tree. We are waiting for a new political climate, new leadership and a new spirit of cooperation. We are waiting for guns to fall silent in our city, for police brutality to stop, for racist systems to collapse. We are waiting for a vaccine, knowing full well that its distribution will be a logistical nightmare, and the poorest will wait the longest for it.
Waiting is not only for Advent though; waiting is a major theme in the Bible. The Psalmist sings, “I wait for the Lord all day long.” And Isaiah says, “Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.” The interesting thing about biblical waiting is that it almost always happens in situations that are bleak. People wait while they are in captivity, prisoners in a foreign land; defeated, expelled from their homes and their beloved city. When, as the prophets describe, they are “living in deep darkness.”
The early Christians were living in troubled times too. Paul writes a letter to the congregation in Thessalonici, to a group of people who were experiencing great loss and adversity. Paul believed Christ’s return was imminent, so he gives encouragement to the new believers and tells them what to do while they wait for Christ’s return; “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.”
We receive this same encouragement for our Advent waiting as well. The apostle Paul invites us to rejoice, pray, and give thanks (always) as we await the full unveiling of God’s realm.
Easier said than done, amiright?
Rejoice always, but how? There is real pain and suffering in our lives. We’re not always happy about everything. Yet joy is more than pleasure; and it's more than happiness. Joy is a state of blessedness. Joy is possible even within the sorrow and pain.
A woman I visited in the hospital last week revealed this to me. She was in extreme pain due to a fractured femur, she was isolated and alone because visitors are not allowed. As she talked about her pain, she also talked about how blessed she is by God’s presence in her life and especially during this time. She rejoiced.
Pray always. This is even more difficult than rejoicing. But praying isn’t only what we do in church or around the dinner table. It’s also a sacred mindfulness. I’ve heard it said that most of us are practical atheists. We live our daily lives without giving much thought to God’s presence. To pray without ceasing is to keep in mind God’s grace and presence in all we do—a sacred mindfulness that we are bathed in the presence of God.
Finally, we are invited to give thanks in all circumstances. Maybe this one is the hardest of all. But Paul didn’t say “give thanks for all things.” He said, “give thanks in all things.” Prepositions matter! We give thanks for the presence of the one who is faithful, the one who walks with us in every circumstance, including our suffering. We give thanks because we are not alone.
We are waiting for many things, some of which will come soon, like Christmas, and others that may or may not ever come. Paul's advice helps us to live fully in the present, grateful for all that God has provided for us. We may discover, in a paradoxical way, that we are waiting for what we already have. And yet we continue to sigh, and to beg, “Come Lord Jesus, come.”
Come, Lord Jesus… is the beginning of a table prayer many of us know by heart. Writer and teacher David Weiss wrote about this years ago, remembering when his now adult daughter, Susanna, was not yet 2 years old. She began to “preside at Advent in our home,” he wrote. She went from adding her own “Amen” at the conclusion of their table prayer to, on the cusp of Advent, beginning the prayer, too.
As David recounted, “Now, as we nightly take our seats and fold our hands, Susanna’s eyes twinkle, and she proclaims in an exuberant voice: ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ That’s as far as she gets. But it’s Advent, and in this season, there is wisdom in Susanna’s abridged table prayer.
Of course, we, her parents and brother, finish the prayer for her before we share our meal. But it’s worth remembering that before we even take up the prayer ourselves everything essential to the season has already been said and done by a child not yet two.
Susanna already knows the truth of Advent. She beckons Jesus to come, and then she waits. Nothing more. And so it is during Advent. We beckon and we wait—as Susanna does, with expectant and hopeful hearts. ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’”