(Im)Patiently Waiting
Advent is one of my favorite times of the year. Growing up, we didn’t celebrate or focus on it but I have learned to absolutely adore this time of year. According to the website resourceumc.org, Advent is a Latin-based word adventus that means, “coming” or “visit.” In the church, it’s the beginning of the church year; the four weeks leading up to Christmas and the few weeks after until Epiphany in January. For me, it’s an excellent reminder about the importance of patiently waiting on the Lord. This year, that patient waiting has definitely been tested in a mighty way.
“The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.
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During Advent, we are called to stop and focus on four different thoughts throughout the season to prepare our hearts for Christmas and celebrating the day Christ was born. Resourceumc.org lists them out as the following:
The promised coming of the Messiah to the Jews.
The coming of Jesus being born in Bethlehem.
The promised return of the risen Christ in final victory.
The continual coming of Christ into the lives and hearts of believers.
I love those words because they are words of active action; I mean look at them! Promised, coming, continual. Those three words are beautiful descriptions of God and how he works in our lives. He promises, then comes, and he continually works, too. I also love Advent season because we focus especially on hope, peace, love, and joy. I don’t know about you, but given our society lately we can use all the hope, peace, love, and joy we can get. This Advent season, though, I find it really challenging to focus on the hope, peace, love, and joy amidst all the noise around us. We are still in the midst of a pandemic that has brought changes to our society none of us were really anticipating. Pandemic fallout has been wrapped so heavily into politics, our mere party affiliation and opinions on vaccines, mask mandates, politicians, and legislation have become part of our very identity whether we realize it or not. There’s a shipping shortage during one of our busiest buying times as Americans. There’s a worker shortage all across the nation, not to mention a teacher and sub shortage all while students are still acclimating to school amidst pandemic changes. Teachers are tired. Healthcare workers are tired. Pastors are tired. Parents are tired. Now we’re entering a season where we’re called to pause, reflect, and anticipate the greatest joy we’ve ever experienced. Seems a little difficult among all that noise.
However, during this year’s Advent season I can’t help but feeling this odd sense of thankfulness at the fact that our society is so noisy, loud, and stressful. I’ve struggled with focusing on the quiet, strong promises of hope, peace, love and joy that Advent brings. I also can’t help but be thankful for the example of Mary during this time, too. In Luke, he describes the moment the angel came to Mary and told her about being chosen as the Mother of Christ. I’m sure Mary, just like all of us, had plenty of noise in her society, too. When looking at the time in which Mary was living, Nazareth was going through similar situations as the United States. Actually, the website Women in the Bible describes Nazareth as being in, “… in a period of social dislocation and political unrest,” (womeninthebible.net). Mary was a Jewish peasant girl who worked hard, loved her family, and was chosen with the immense responsibility of bringing Christ to our world through not-so-normal means. Like y’all, let’s not forget Mary was pregnant and unmarried. That alone could have caused her to be shunned by society and her family alike and be seen as a disgrace. Yet God saw this girl as important enough to carry out the task of being the mother to Christ in spite of all this. We can see this same type of stress in our own lives, I’m sure. But what I love most about this task Mary was given is her response to it all in Luke Chapter 1. Knowing what she was being asked to do, instead of coming up with an excuse or beginning to stress and fall apart, instead of allowing her human understanding dictate how she would carry this new role and being distracted by the noise in her head and her hometown, she responded with one of the most beautiful phrases in the entire Bible, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true” (Luke 1:38).
We are constantly under the microscope of others and their opinions of us. Our lives are on display 24/7 through carefully curated social media posts, pictures, and the like. We have grown accustomed to putting on a “safe face” for the internet to make it look like we have it all together, craving likes on pictures and affirmations on posts when in reality most of us are drowning in stress most know nothing about. In the case of Mary, I can’t help but think what would have happened when word got out in her conservative, small town of Nazareth when she started to show she was pregnant. What would have been said about her? To her? Living in a small town, I’m sure Mary knew the risk of accepting such a huge responsibility and yet she still accepted it with a yes and waited for God to deliver. According to Luke, she is described as “favored” (Luke 1:31) and having “found favor with God” (Luke 1:30). Despite the backdrop of her society at the time and the personal beliefs of those around her, knowing fully well the risk of rejection from her family, friends, and even her fiance Mary still said yes to the plans the Lord had for her. She said yes to the waiting, the patience, the hope and joy this journey would bring her. And this is precisely why I love the Advent season.
This year, Cameron and I have had our fair share of noise inundate our minds trying to wreck our peace. Atticus, even though he isn’t here just yet, has definitely given us a run for our money. He has caused us so many sleepless nights of worry, excitement, anticipation, and fear; feelings I’m sure Mary experienced while she was growing Christ as a baby (even though I’m sure Christ didn’t cause her nearly as much indigestion and insomnia as this kid has). Yet in all of that, she still anticipated the Lord to work in her favor because she was told she had favor. Friends, we have so many distractions surrounding us constantly that at times it’s hard to tell up from down. But have you stopped to see how God views us? Through a quick, simple Google search, here are just a few examples of how we as followers of Christ are described:
New creation (1 Corinthians 3:16)
Children of God (1 John 3: 1-2)
Conquerors (Romans 8:37)
Righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Mary was described as “favored” and she was chosen to bring the Son of God into this world. Look at that list again. We are a new creation, children of God, more than conquerors, and the righteousness of God himself. Imagine what God wants to do with our lives, especially during this Advent season.
Sometimes we just get so caught up in all of this societal noise it gets to the point where we don’t really know when God is speaking to us or not because we just don’t listen. We get impatient with ourselves and each other, and just go about this season with the same frustration and endless checklists like we’ve done time and time again between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It becomes about errand running, dinners, stress, shopping, and trying to “fit everything in.” I know for me personally it’s become a time of being borderline resentful at the fact that I can’t be home with my family during the holidays because of our circumstances with Atticus; frustration with God that time has seemingly come to a painful crawl in Nashville getting to delivery day with our boy and return home, and the revolving remix of thoughts in my head of confusion as to why all of this is happening in the first place. Today especially there was a span of about an hour I was so, so mad about having to celebrate Thanksgiving in Nashville that it caused me to actually break down and angry cry. Like ugly, tantrum-throwing, mascara running, inconsolable, “I-want-to-be-dramatic-don’t-try-to-cheer-me-up” cry. But friends, what better time than now for the amazing promise of Advent and the coming promise of Christ?
Now more than ever I am thankful for this time of frustration and tears. It’s forced me to slow down and be at true peace with everything around me, even though there are days where I just want to cry. I think of Mary and her circumstances with Jesus and I’m sure there were moments where she wanted to cry, too. But look at the promise her waiting brought; a way for us to be connected with Christ through her painstaking journey despite what society may have said about her situation. So what does this all mean for us this Advent season? I firmly believe God is calling all of us to wait on him, and anticipate him to work in those situations that just seem hopeless. In John Chapter 2, Jesus talks about a small period of waiting when he tells his mother it’s not his time yet. Then again in John 7, his brothers tried to convince him to leave Galilee after a group of religious leaders were looking for a way to kill him, but he tells his brothers, “My time is not yet here.” He waited for God’s timing and voice.
In Genesis, Abraham patiently waited for God to deliver on his promise of children for years and years after he and his wife were not able to have any. Hebrews describes his waiting as “Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised” (Hebrews 6:15). Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and thrown into prison over a false crime and was forced to wait in jail. However, God used his skills to help Pharaoh and in Genesis 50:20 he says “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). Then there’s the entire story of Job waiting patiently through trials and pain only a few of us can relate to. However, after his time of painful waiting, God blesses his life tremendously for his faithfulness and patience. James describes it as: “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11). These moments in the Bible are perfect examples of people surrounded by their own version of noise waiting patiently for God to move, anticipating him to work, and God following through in his timing. They are moments that show how that anticipation of God working brings the themes of peace, hope, joy, and show us how to love and be loved in turn.
Maybe this Advent season is God asking you to anticipate him to work in a situation you’re living in that seems to painful and irreparable. Perhaps these next four weeks are God’s way of asking you to wait in hope for God to move in your hopeless moment and transform it into something that is whole again. Maybe God is calling you over this Advent season to use the noise around to you focus in on showing love to those who seem most unlovable right now. Or maybe God is asking you to quiet yourself for a short time, telling him exactly what Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” I know for me, this Advent season is waiting in anticipation for God to deliver my son to us healthy and whole, ready for the next step in our adventure of parenthood, Spina Bifida, trusting without any “yes, but…” sentences and turning my plans over to the God who calls me his own.
I love Advent season, friends. And I hope you will learn to love it, too. You are favored, cherished, and loved by the God of the universe. Never once does the Bible say you have to be “put together first” to experience the transformation that comes from waiting and anticipating God to work. Over the next four weeks leading up to Christmas, my prayer for you is that you will come to God with your anticipation and request. I pray that you will come to him with that burden you’ve been carrying, and ask him for hope and peace. I pray you are so filled with love you cannot help but show love to others; even the ones that pluck every last nerve in our hearts. He is a God who chooses everyday, ordinary people to do the most extraordinary work. And this Advent season, I pray you find that God truly can take your hopeless situation and change it into something whole and beautiful. That’s the whole point of Advent, after all; hope for our world to be transformed from brokenness into wholeness (umcdiscipleship.org).
"The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
