Advent Week One: Hope

 

I invite you to light one single candle, a candle of Hope, as you read this meditation.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel

That mourns lonely exile here, until the child of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!

Yesterday, I invited you to hold the question, “What are you waiting for?”  To ask that question in different ways, with different weight on each word, and see what might be evoked and provoked for you.  How did that go?

The season of Advent is about both waiting and preparing for Emmanuel. 

A few things about that sentence.  First, there is a tension built and baked into this season.  We wait (which is usually passive) and prepare (which is usually about making lists, checking them twice, and being in charge/control.)  We wait – for that which is beyond us.  We prepare – doing what we can, where we can.  Do you hear that tension?  There is a both/and of this holy time of year.  Do you hear how we usually focus on the preparing part with the parties and the festivities and the hustle/bustle; how this year we can attend to the Advent truth of waiting.  Waiting for all sorts of events and experiences and encounters which have been delayed or deferred or denied or dismissed entirely.  Waiting.  Second, we are waiting for Emmanuel – a name that means – “God is with us and God is for us.”  Hold that for a moment.

As we wait, we can pray.  I believe this Advent hymn, “O Come, o come Emmanuel” is a beautiful prayer this year.  I quoted the first verse above.  The second line, “That mourns in lonely exile here,” might define and distinguish the last nine months of our lives.  We grieve not being together.  We lament the pain that sits uneasy in our souls.  We mourn the passing of people we love to this virus and the brokenness that polarization has caused in our country and the ways we discriminate against our brothers and sisters made in God’s holy image. 

Advent isn’t only “Rejoice, rejoice”.  Advent is a time, in the waiting, to process the pains, strains, stress, and God-forsakenness we might feel.  Pastors don’t often get to talk about this because it seems too depressing right before Christmas.  But I believe that only when we are honest about our wounds and wants can rejoicing – heartfelt and honest rejoicing – come in the morning.  Our, that it is in mourning that joy comes in the morning.  In our waiting, watching, wondering, and wandering, can we name and notice the places where we struggle right now?  Prayerfully ask, invite, God to enter that space/place with Emmanuel – God’s holy presence.

Prayer: May the words of this meditation, O God, be embraced, embodied, and experienced in my life today. Amen.