Raging against Advent

The simplicity of Advent is sometimes hard to capture.  It is not a sad, quiet time quite like Lent as we prepare ourselves for the Great Three Days of liturgy leading up to Easter.

It is similar like what winter does in nature, which may be why I struggle every year skipping straight over winter/Advent in my mind, and look forward to the joyous springtime that is Jesus' birth.  I really don't like how grey winter can be in Virginia.  The trees have lost their leaves, the sky takes on a bleak grey-like quality, and very rarely is there a sunny day that is not also too blinding without the shade of a good tree to contrast the brightness.  I waited at least a week after Thanksgiving here in America before I decorated for Christmas in my new home.  Festive music is still strictly forbidden from my car radio, and occasionally I will abide a holiday tune played in a store to make its jolly way into my heart.

I still rage against Advent in the way that I rage against winter in the northern hemisphere.

The Lord is with us (he is with us indeed) already!  Why should we have patience to sit through four weeks of Advent waiting for this Messiah when we've already been saved by grace?  Why does it matter that we have Advent specific music to sing during worship on a Sunday and we ignore the good Christmas tunes we all know by heart until after December 25?

My Advent wreath this year,
a sign of hope and light in winter

Taking a look into scripture history, the journey of Advent begins to make more sense.  The Jews of the Old Testament waited for hundreds of years for the One to come to earth.  There were many prophets who paved the way, many pains in communities who lived through diasporas and exodus' from their homelands, and many long winters to endure for this wonderful sign of Hope to feel even within our sights on the horizon.

So we wait today, thousands of years later, in the softness of our Advent.  Our four weeks of considering what waiting for Hope is like.  To sit in these long nights, pull our communities in close, and strengthen relationships to get us through the many pains we have today.

Some of us are not very pleased with the state of US and UK politics (among many many other issues of justice in many many communities around the world).  Some of us are very comforted by the current leadership lineup.  For some of us, these next four years are looking like the forty years the Hebrews had to wander the dessert before being allowed into the Promised Land.  We gather in our communities to seek comfort, this Advent.  To take a deep breath and gather our wits about us for the journey ahead.  Whichever path you're on, there are others walking beside you, praying beside you, and struggling beside you.

Advent is a time for acknowledging our brokenness, and acknowledging how powerful it is that our Hope came among us in our brokenness just as damaged, and said 'Peace be with you.'

And all I can say to that is Amen.