Advent is misleading us
Real-life waiting in a too-short season
Psalm 27:14
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
I have always loved Advent, the church season that prepares us for the in-breaking of God into our world. I love the hymns we sing in worship. I love the candles we light each week as the days get shorter and shorter. I love seeing the sanctuary get decorated for Christmas. I love hearing the stories of Mary, Elizabeth, and the angels. This has always been one of my favorite times of the year.
That is, until last year.
You see, a large theme of this liturgical season is waiting. Waiting for God to come to us as a baby in Jesus, yes, but also waiting for the second coming of our Lord. The full redemption of creation. The Kingdom of God in its fullness.
And last year, I deeply resented that the season that focuses on this profound and earth-shattering waiting is only 4 weeks long.
Whose idea was this?!
Last Advent, I was in the midst of excruciating waiting. I was waiting weeks for information on potential jobs. I was in the midst of waiting months to have any movement in the first call process. I was in the emotional depths of waiting for a permanent address and a new dog.
The waiting I experienced over the past year was not about a cute little church season leading up to a baby in a manger, but about my very survival. Doing the thing to which God called me to do. Providing for my family. Finding a home. Having a purpose again.
Waiting for these things took much longer than 4 weeks. 15-20 times as long, give or take.
And I was bitter about it.
I wasn’t alone in this feeling, either. I vividly remember a group spiritual direction with three of my fellow seminary grads last December, as we gathered to communally chaff against this Advent waiting. We felt like the season was mocking us as we sat there, MDivs in hand, with no jobs on the horizon. Working within slow institutional processes. Struggling to explain this annoying process to our friends who kept telling us to network and send our resume to more places (that’s not how it works!).
Maybe you can understand this, too. Outside of my what-felt-like-eternity transitional year, when have you ever waited for something—something meaningful, profound, impactful, God-in-a-manger size—that only required waiting a mockingly short 4 weeks?
We wait weeks as we save up money for vacations.
We wait months as we go to chemo hoping that the test at the end will have good news.
We wait years as we plan weddings and build houses and finalize divorces and look for new jobs.
Then there are the actual stories in the Bible.
Stories of God’s people waiting 40 years to get to the promised land
and people waiting decades to have children
and a people waiting their entire lives for God to give them a King
and Israel waiting generations for their Messiah to come
and waiting, waiting, and more waiting.
Even Mary and Elizabeth—very prominent Advent and Christmas story characters—still had to wait 9 months for the birth of their babies!
I hate to break it to you, but this 4 week Advent is deceiving us all. It doesn’t give us the time to build up any sort of muscle for the actual waiting that’s required of us in our real lives.
And for those who are in the pains of waiting for something big—who know the longing of excruciating, unending waiting—a brief 4-week season of waiting for the coming of God into our world can feel like salt in a wound.
On the first Sunday of Advent last year, I attended St Gregory’s in San Francisco. Well, it was my first week of Advent, but not theirs. They actually celebrate 7 weeks of Advent, and not just so that they can sing all the O Come, O Come Emmanuel verses, but because they think the lectionary readings in November are perfect Advent readings.
It was refreshing to be amidst a community who had begun this season of waiting three weeks before I even showed up. They were already in the rhythm, already wrestling with some things. Feeling stronger. Trusting God’s promises. A little more comfortable with the uncomfortable that Advent can bring.
As I sat there, I couldn’t help but wonder, why isn’t every church doing this?
Advent always, without fail, feels rushed. It falls at the same time that everyone is buying presents, wrapping presents, hosting all the parties, attending all the kids’ concerts, going to even more church services, making cookies, getting together with family and then healing from the conflict that ensued, etc, etc.
For a season of waiting, it sure goes by fast. Very much unlike the real waiting we do in our real lives which feels like eternity.
As I sat in St. Gregory’s, “halfway” through Advent, I wondered if we could begin waiting earlier. What if we had some time before Black Friday to sit with Advent, sit in it, before the chaos ensued? Before the waiting sped up.
What if Advent looked more like our actual lives? Slow, long, and drawn out.
Last year, this is the Advent I needed. It’s the Advent I yearned for. I wanted Advent to continue on into the new year. I wanted it to be a minimum of six months. I needed Advent—a loonnnngggg Advent—more than ever before.
I also needed everyone to stay with me in the waiting. I needed the church and a community to wait with me. And my deep fear was that I would still be waiting on December 26th while everyone else had moved on.
I wasn’t ready for everyone around me to celebrate Jesus’ coming into the world when I felt like Christmas wasn’t going to change anything in my own life. I didn’t want to be alone again when I was still waiting for this Good News to reach me in the darkness and barrenness of my field.
In many weeks of reflection on this, the Spirit began to slowly chip away at my bitter heart.
I realized that maybe it’s in my defiance of Christmas coming—in my unbelief that it’s coming for me, in my frustration that December 25 does not take my waiting away—that makes it the perfect time for the Word to become flesh.
When I’m not ready for it.
When I’m resistant to it.
When I don’t believe it’s really true.
When I want everyone to stay in my cranky self-righteous Advent season with me.
Maybe this is when I’m most in need of the in-breaking of God into the world and into my life. In the midst of my eternal waiting. In the loneliness of waiting alone. In my hopelessness that Christmas will ever come. In my bitterness of a too-short Advent season.
Eventually, as I tried to soak in as much Advent as I could in a short 28 days, as Christmas continued to quickly approach without my consent, I began to hear God whispering to me,
“My dear, you have waited long enough. Take heart, because you never have to wait for me. I have come to you. I am here. I am with you in the waiting.”
It had been an exhausting 7 months of waiting in the real world, with no end in sight.
Perhaps a 4 week Advent was long enough.
🕯️
Whether you feel rushed in the chaos of Advent, impatient for whatever it is you’re waiting for, or not feeling ready for Christmas to come, know that God finds you there. That’s the promise of the Christmas, a promise we can celebrate through the months and years of real-life waiting.