we wait with hope – Advent.
Advent. A time of purposeful waiting, longing, hoping, anticipation, and mystery. The significance of Advent is not lost on me this year. I go to every December to get drugs infused in to my blood stream that will kill off the B cells in my immune system that are going rogue and attacking my nervous system. This is my Advent activity for the day. And perhaps it’s the best possible advent activity – purposeful waiting with hope.
We sit in an infusion room at the MS clinic and wait several hours while the clear, innocent looking liquid drips in slowly, so slowly it looks like nothing is happening. Nevertheless, it’s a watery looking fluid that is powerful, killing cells that fail me and attack the protective layers of my nervous system. Somehow, it works. It slows the progression of a disease that God, in His sovereignty, allows. And while I still feel the ever-increasing effects of my broken nervous system that cannot heal itself, only hopefully be prevented from further damage by the failing body that houses it, the innocent looking liquid drips…and does its work well.
The significance of sitting in an infusion room with others like me with broken bodies during Advent is not lost in me. Of course, whoever you are, you can resonate, right? Aren’t we all broken somehow? Feeling the brokenness of a failing body reminds me, reminds us, that our Hope comes from outside this world, and we wait with anticipation for the day He will fully and completely restore the broken and make ALL things new. Praise God! Hope has come and Hope will come again. Light has overcome the darkness and light will overcome the darkness.
But for now, He resonates with us. He, the Creator who become created, sympathizes with our weakness because He became like us, human and broken and tired and tempted.
What does Advent mean to you? Is it overwhelming? Fun? Busy? Reflective? Culture tells us: Go! Do! More! Plan an activity every day for your kids! Or, even, we ignore it and just think about buying things or let Christmas slip past unnoticed. But Jesus…Jesus invites us to slow down. To drink in the wonder, the mystery, the darkness, the brokenness, the light, the hope. He invites us to desperation. He invites us to the anticipation of something greater.
Advent is a time of waiting, anticipation, and longing. Why do we “wait” when Jesus has already been born? We aren’t Israelites waiting for the birth of the Messiah anymore after all… Oh, but we are. Are you broken? Does your body fail you? Have your loved ones died? Do you struggle with broken relationships? Things just don’t seem to be the way they “should be”?
We wait. We long. We anticipate.
Or do we rush past those deeper longings…to the next store, the next activity, the next…? I LOVE saying “yes” to things I normally say no to – like ‘Santa Belly’ doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, and Christmas cookies, and staying up late to play another game sitting beside the lights of the Christmas tree. But if that’s all that Christmas is about…then I am trying to create my own light, a light that won’t suffice or last because I am not the One who makes Christmas absolutely staggering and awe-filled.
I love what Tim Keller says in his book, Hidden Christmas, “The message of Christianity, is instead, ‘Things really are this bad, and we can’t heal or save ourselves. Things really are this dark – nevertheless, there is hope.’ The Christmas message is that ‘on those living in a land of deep darkness a light has dawned.’ Notice that it doesn’t say from the world a light has sprung, but upon the world a light has dawned. It has come from outside. There is light outside this world, and Jesus has brought that light to save us; indeed, he isthe Light (Jn. 8:12)”
When we don’t allow ourselves to sit and to feel deeply, the height and magnitude of Christmas and God being made human, like us, will not reach the heights it was meant to in our hearts. We short-circuit the joy of the hope that came, the hope that is daily coming to us, and the hope that will one day come.
And when He comes again, He will finally, fully, and completely restore us and those in Christ to a wholeness we cannot yet imagine. Don’t miss the fullness, the beauty of His coming because you can’t slow down and feel the brokenness and pain that He came, He comes, and will come again, to heal.
His rule and reign we will ever sing. All glory be to Christ, our King!
