Scripture: Psalm 27:14 – “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (NRSVue)
Advent is the time of anticipation and preparation, but it is also a reminder of the necessity of patience. We can be like children waiting for Christmas Eve. We sneak around the house looking for presents. We have trouble sleeping because we cannot wait for all the excitement and tradition. We long to be part of an extraordinary experience and we do not want to miss it.
Many stories about Christmas talk about Christmas not coming or there not being a Christmas this year. Think of classics like How the Grinch Stole Christmas or The Year Without a Santa Claus. But the truth is that Christmas always comes on December 25. Some find this inevitability stressful, while to others it is a source of joy. It is a sign of relief and a sign of hope.
But in other parts of life, the anticipated day does not come. Our hopes are not achieved. The promise does not always come to us. And so, as people of faith, we are asked to be patient. We are asked to live in a perpetual Advent, always preparing and anticipating, but never quite getting to the day when the promise of the return of Jesus is fulfilled or our other more mundane hopes are met. So, we wait and seek to find meaning in our waiting.
Our unmet hopes are not just like a child waiting for Santa Claus. They are like a wound on our souls, a drain on our faith. Our patience helps our wounds to scab over so we can heal from our grief and disappointment. But the thing about scabs is that they itch. We become impatient for healing and need to wait for our bodies to finalize the process, even if it leaves scars that will always mar our flesh.
The itchiness of impatience can be annoying, but I think it is preferable to numbness. Numbness shows that the wound is not healing. And when we look at our unmet hopes, we stop waiting for the Lord. We stop having that itch that troubles us but also shows that we are alive. When our hopes are continually unmet, we just stop hoping and stop caring.
The open wounds of our souls just become business as usual. We hear the words of the Psalms, written by people itching for salvation or jubilant in praise, and think “that’s nice.” We hear words like, “Wait for the Lord!” and in some dark recess of our minds feel like God will never come, at least not in the way that we hope. Not in a way that matters.
Stories like A Christmas Carol teach the virtue of keeping Christmas in your heart the whole year round. But I think we also need to carry the lessons of Advent throughout the year as well. We need to have a kind of holy impatience that keeps us alive in our faith, as painful and as unpleasant as that may be.
Because life is painful; life gives you scars that never truly heal. But the life that is truly life is bought through pain, the resurrection through the crucifixion. If we stop looking for God, if we stop actively waiting, we may miss the fact that God is with us. Keep being impatient, keep itching, and let the patience you need come through courage, not resignation.
Prayer: Lord, keep my heart burning in zeal for you, a living fire, not a cold hearth. Amen.
Comments