Advent in August

 

What are you waiting for?  That question can be asked in so many ways, with different tenors, textures, and tones.  Go ahead, say those five words aloud, each time, emphasizing a different word.  When I say to myself, “What are you waiting for?,” it makes my shy soul curl up like a frightened turtle.  Emphasizing the word, “what” is dripping with judgment ~ dripping like humidity on a hot Florida August day.  But when I gently say, almost with a whisper, “What are you waiting for?”  Try that right now, softly/gently say those words so you can barely hear, emphasizing the word, “you”.  When I do that, I sense curiosity, openness, and wonderment about where/when/how am I waiting?  Maybe today you are waiting for the doctor to call, words from others that squall, for resolution of the things you haul, and trying to dust yourself off from the fall.  Everyone, as Dr. Seuss prophetically proclaimed, is waiting.

 

In the church calendar, we have a season called Advent that is about spiritually waiting.  These are the four Sundays before Christmas Day.  During Advent, we light four candles, one each Sunday, that we say help us prepare for God’s grand arrival in a barn on Christmas Eve.  We call the candles: hope, peace, joy, and love.  These are audacious names given the external evidence of the news you read each day.  Hope?  Really, in a world of deep divisions, where we struggle to know what is real?  Or maybe we’ve been taught and told to delay joy until we’ve earned/deserve it ~ like God’s joy is some vacation that we’ve got to work a certain number of hours before we can take.  Or how do you practice peace in the face of war and violence?  

 

The church year cannot be confined by a calendar.  Just because Advent falls at the end of the year, the themes of Advent can visit you no matter the date or weather outside your window.  Advent offers us the meta-narrative of both waiting and preparing.  The waiting of Advent isn’t passive, nor is it scurrying, hurrying, flurrying around like we must look busy because Jesus is coming!!  However, the culture at Christmas is very much preaching a gospel of more and cramming another party/event/concert/gathering into your calendar before this year is finished.  Prayerful waiting, watching your life for God to show up in the least likely place (because if God decides a barn is the setting/scene for a grand entry- doesn’t that give us pause for how God continues to show up in our lives?).  God comes in the vulnerability of a baby.  God’s arrival doesn’t stop all oppression immediately; Caesar is still on the throne as Mary nurses Jesus.  God’s arrival doesn’t immediately right all wrongs. 

 

God moves slowly, intentionally, thoughtfully ~ like we are waiting for a turtle. 

 

What are you waiting for right now in this moment, in this season, on this day?  May that prayerful question meet you in the Advent of August this week.  Amen.