Advent Reflections

Advent has always been my favorite season of the church year. Maybe it's not kosher for clergy to have a favorite liturgical season, but I do. There's something so exciting about waiting for a promise to be fulfilled, for great expectations to come to pass, for nothing less than a miracle. Each year I try not to let the commercialized holiday culture of instant gratification burst my Advent suspense bubble. Instead, I try to focus on the Christmas story itself - on the hopeful expectation of Mary and indeed the entire community of the faithful who are placing all their bets on this mysterious messiah. I try to take stock of my deepest longings for the world, then I imagine what it would be like if - just maybe - this year they might come true. I revel in the unknown - I wait with the weight of God's promise. It's not easy to live for four weeks in suspense, and it must have been an extraordinarily long nine months for the holy parents-to-be. But if they made it through the wait in one piece, then surely I can, too.

"View the Present through the Promise"
Thomas H. Troeger

View the present through the promise,
Christ will come again.
Trust despite the deepening darkness,
Christ will come again.
Lift the world above its grieving
through your watching and believing
in the hope past hope's conceiving:
Christ will come again.

Probe the present with the promise,
Christ will come again.
Let your daily actions witness,
Christ will come again.
Let your loving and your giving
and your justice and forgiving
be a sign to all the living:
Christ will come again.

Match the present to the promise,
Christ will come again.
Make this hope your guiding premise,
Christ will come again.
Pattern all your calculating
and the world you are creating
to the advent you are waiting:
Christ will come again.

Borrowed Light: Hymn texts, prayers, and poems
Oxford University Press, 1994