A Joy That Cannot Be Rushed

This morning I glanced over an article in the Atlantic entitled, “What if Our Ancestors Didn’t Feel Anything Like We Do?” It was about a team of historians who are researching how our ancestors might have experienced love, anger, fear, and sorrow. Not necessarily that they weren’t psychologically equal to us, but asking whether they had the words to label emotions and sensations like we do today.

For example, at the doctor, you might describe something as a “shooting pain.” Would a society before (or distant from) arrows and firearms understand this description?

This got me thinking about the plethora of emotions we find in the Advent narrative, and there indeed are many. From Zechariah and Elizabeth to Mary, Joseph, and everyone they knew, emotions ran the gamut from doubt and fear to joy and thanksgiving, and everything in between.

In her book, The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting, Sylvie Vanhoozer reflects on her childhood growing up in Provence, France, the deep Advent traditions tied to the pastoral landscape and slow rhythm of life. I think she gets close to how those in Ancient Israel may have experienced the first Advent; the first Christmas.

For she writes,

“The art of living in Advent is all about cultivating this sense of confident expectancy: Christ is coming, but he cannot be rushed.” (p.29)

It’s not uncommon this time of year, to hear the admonition, “slow down and savor the season.” But we don’t often think about Jesus’ speed, or lack thereof. God could have sent His son fully formed, beamed down from heaven. But instead, He chose to give Jesus the same journey as every earthly baby. What was nine more months, or thirty three years of waiting after 400 years of silence? 

God had something huge and miraculous in store for His people, much bigger than anyone could have hoped for or imagined. Yet the promise was fulfilled in the most unexpected way ever. 

I like the way Vanhoozer puts it: 

“The nativity scene takes place mid-story, but it recounts the birth of the one who is in truth the beginning and end of all stories.”

She goes on to say, “Advent, we have seen, is an integral part of a greater story when things happen at just the right time: ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law’ (Galatians 4:4-5) . . . But be assured: God’s gift is worth waiting for.” (p. 29-30)

“Remember that your story is woven onto the larger tapestry of what God is doing in our world. Remember that being adventish means joyfully watching and waiting for Jesus’ advent to make sense of your life too.” (p. 40)

I often struggle with what it means to joyfully wait. But joy isn’t always displayed in bouncing happiness or jubilant expressions. Joy can be as simple as “a source or cause of delight.” And I have to believe the ancient world found delight much easier than we do today, with colored pixels floating before our eyes almost 24/7.

And so I adjust the phrase: to wait with delight. 
Mary and Elizabeth both felt it, at the leaping of the babies in their wombs. But before that, I trust they lived their lives delighting in the work and success of a harvest, the routine of a day well done, the rest of Sabbath after a long week of toil, the comfort of their communities and faith.

Vanhoozer is thinking along these lines when she writes,

“We live in cultures that have forgotten how to wait for things—life itself!—to grow. Instead of being a time of preparation or joyful anticipation, waiting is often something we unhappily endure. The art of living in Advent has therefore become a lost art . . . But there is always something to be done to tend what God is growing as we wait for Christ to come again. He will come at the right time. In the meantime, he has given us the gift of time—a time to grow in the grace and knowledge of Him, and a time to serve others.” (p.43)

I don’t know about you, but I find great delight in watching seedlings grow each Spring. It is miraculous, every time. Indeed, buying fully bloomed plants from the store are just as delightful, but there is something important that happens as one joyfully waits and participates in the growing process.

It was no accident that Jesus spent his first nine months as a human wrapped in embryonic fluid, sustained by nutrients Mary’s body provided. The fullness of time was not to be rushed. The fullness of Mary’s joy would not be rushed either.

Advent helps us become better watchers and waiters. We finish each season, better prepared to notice God’s presence and movement in our lives. And the waiting helps us remember that we are waiting for a greater Joy still to come. 

Vanhoozer says, “In Advent, we enter into the beginning of the fullness of time” (p.27). And some day soon, this weary world will rejoice because Christ has come again.

Waiting Together, in Hope

When have I ever felt “ready” (as in “prepared”) for Advent? Answer: probably never. A not-so-secret secret is that I don’t do much to make ready for this season of writing and reflection. The beauty, for me, is in the moment; the act of noticing and sharing what I’ve observed.

Author and podcaster Kate Bowler has a new social media series called “A Blessing and a Curse.” This morning, for the beginning of Advent, she wrote:

Not because the world is tidy or ready. (It isn’t.) But because this is how hope works:
One candle lit in the ruins.
One breath held in holy defiance.

This season is familiar ground for those who keep showing up.
Who wait for healing.
Who long for justice.
Who believe that even now, God is drawing near.

Welcome to Advent, friends.
The world is a mess, but God is coming, anyway.

Almost a decade ago, I read a Lenten blog by Addie Zierman about times when our whole lives, when the whole world, feels like Lent. Somber, weighed-down, incomplete. I don’t know about you, but that feels like 2025 to me. When we feel like the embodiment of Lent, we need to remember and proclaim the importance of Advent. The world is full of darkness. Current events are scary and confusing. Stories coming from news headlines can seem infuriating and debilitating. But this is when we need Advent the most. Light in the darkness. It is built into the very fabric of our winter holiday celebration to push back the darkness with light. 

The Advent season teaches us a lot about waiting. Advent waiting is full of expectation [see name of this blog!] and in many ways is an exercise in looking for the Light. This is not a passive waiting, but one full of curiosity, wonder, and hope. Waiting for understanding to bridge the gap between not-yet and “the fullness of time.” It is hard. But Advent teaches us it is not meant to be a frantic search. The Nativity story (as old as time itself) is stretched across four Sundays, causing us to pause and observe each theme and each character’s steady path towards the Christ-child’s feeding-trough throne. To pay attention. Here there is beauty and mystery, wisdom and comfort, if we only pay attention to the story before us.

I will end with a poem by Written to Speak author, Tanner Olson. He writes about this idea so wonderfully:

Advent begins quietly—
the way the fun slops into the sky
before we have the chance 
to say goodbye to the stars.
It starts small, soft, almost forgettable,
and yet something in us knows
this season is asking us to slow down
and pay attention.

We light one candle
to push back the dark,
to remind ourselves that hope
burns bright—
a spark that is just enough 
to keep us moving forward.
It comes in flickers,
in whispers,
in the gentle glow
of a God who has not forgotten us.

And maybe this is the hardest part—
the waiting.
The in-between.
The not-yet.
Trusting that God is working 
in the places we cannot see,
stitching together the things
we thought were falling apart,
breathing life where we assumed
there was only silence. 

But Advent tells us
a different story.
That even in the long nights,
God is doing more
than we can imagine.
That His timing is not absence,
and His quiet is not distance.

So we wait—
not with empty hands,
but with hands holding the truth
that light is on its way.

And we remember:
We are not forgotten.
We are not alone. 
God is filling our lives
with hope, peace, joy, and love—
often more than we know
what to do with—
as He invites us 
to slow down
and pay attention.

In this season,
we wait.
We hope.
We trust that God is doing 
Something more
than we can see.

Let us wait together, with hope.

The Mindset of the Magi

Of the two gospels that recorded Christ’s birth, only Matthew spoke about the wise men who came to visit toddler-Jesus.

1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
(Matthew 2:1-8)

It’s an amazing turn in the Nativity story, full of evasive moves, an evil villain, and a quest. We don’t really know much about the Wise Men, or Magi, as they were referred. I often wonder how Matthew learned about them at all.

Today, we know that the word Magi comes from “magus”, an Old Persian word for the priestly caste of Zoroastrianism. These Magi were known to be specialists in astrology and dreams. A perfect group of people to see a new star in the heavens. Only they were approximately 1,000 miles away to the East. Why would God orchestrate this part of the story with so many hurdles? Not only did they have to travel (on camel), they weren’t following a road, but a star. When they arrived, they were not quite received with open arms. And when they finally accomplished their mission, they had to sneak out of town like spies.

Maybe their story isn’t so dissimilar to Mary and Joseph’s. Nothing about the events leading up to Jesus’ birth were easy. Why would His worshipper’s journey be any different? I think we can find great comfort in this. As we walk through this life, our Father is orchestrating trillions of moving pieces for our good and His glory. That long wait we are experiencing might just be the length of time it takes us to get from the Persian desert to a small town named Bethlehem.

Last year I read an Advent devotional by Asheritah Ciuciu. This year I’ve been reading her reflections online. She draws another avenue of inspiration from the wise men’s story. But first, let’s finish the narrative:

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
(Matthew 2:9-12)

Ciuciu writes:

“How do we fight so hard to create fun holiday memories, only to feel like failures? We imagine these weeks playing out like the script of a Hallmark movie: beautiful family moments set to cheerful tunes. But reality crashes into those daydreams, leaving us disgruntled and weary.

Instead of laughter and cherished moments … chaos and wailing.
Instead of a fun romp through the tree farm … frozen toes and hungry complaining.
Instead of perfectly frosted sugar cookies … burnt edges and runny royal icing.
Instead of peaceful family gatherings … harsh words and hurt feelings.

. . . [But] I’m encouraged by the story of the wise men preserved for us in Scripture. . . The word 'overjoyed' gives me pause. When the wise men saw the star, the ESV Bible says “they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy”. That is what I want for us this Christmas season: to recalibrate our holiday disorientation and set our sights on the shining Light of the world.”

After that grueling journey, can you imagine their joy? But I actually notice something that makes their rejoicing even more relatable to us. The second half of verse 9 says:
“they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.” It’s kind of a clunky sentence, but from it we notice that the star needed to rise in order to be seen.

During the day, the wise men were guideless. Having arrived first in Jerusalem (where they thought a new king would surely originate from), maybe they wondered if the star was done shining. When they learned they were definitely not in the right city and could no longer see the star because of daylight, I imagine they doubted whether the star would return that evening to finish the journey.

If that doesn’t mirror our tendency to worry and doubt, I don’t know what does. We love to see and know, to understand. When we are “in the dark” about anything, it can feel like a personal affront or an insurmountable task. But just because the answer/guide is not visible doesn’t mean it’s not there. But because we can’t see God moving doesn’t mean He isn’t.

When I sat down to write, I originally thought I’d reflect on the radical intersection of the wise men and King Herod. As early as 500 A.D. Christian writers began referring to the Magi as kings, basing their ideas on prophecies like Psalm 72:10. And then in 1857, John Henry Hopkins Jr. penned the carol we know as We Three Kings.

Kings versus king. There are all sorts of comparisons and contrasts (mostly contrasts) we can draw between these two, but when we boil it down, we only need to ask one question: Who wanted to find Jesus in order to worship Him?

God used the totally unexpected to pay homage to His Son. And He continues to use these unexpected kings to show us the magnitude of His power and grace, the wide reach of His hands, and the vast circumference of His plan.

The Narrow Way

It may seem a bit out of the ordinary, but this month my church is going through the book of Jonah for Advent. There are many obvious parallels between Jonah and adult Jesus, but I had never stopped to think about Jonah’s connection to the birth of Christ. Today our pastor spoke on the precision of God’s salvation—both for Jonah and through Jesus.

Orchestrating His creation for His exact goal, God choose one of His created beings (a giant fish/whale) to save/swallow another of His creation (Jonah) from His very creation (the stormy sea). And God knew and guided the fish to be exactly in the right spot (in the whole Mediterranean Sea) at the right moment.

Miraculously, Jonah survived in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights (a foreshadowing of Jesus’s death and resurrection) before God told the whale to vomit Jonah onto dry land.

Some people approach God’s way and call it constricting or too narrow (much like Jonah would have felt inside a giant fish, deep underwater). But my pastor reasoned, “there is nothing claustrophobic about God’s grace—it is precise. Look at the precision of God’s salvation in the Incarnation; the narrowness of a baby.”

Taking this image a step further, I turn to day 4 of the Good News of Great Joy Advent devotional published by Desiring God. John Piper begins by providing context from the gospel of Luke:

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” (Luke 2:1–5)

He then says,

“Have you ever thought what an amazing thing it is that God ordained beforehand that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem (as the prophecy in Micah 5:2 shows); and that he so ordained things that when the time came, the Messiah’s mother and legal father were living not in Bethlehem but in Nazareth; and that in order to fulfill his word and bring two unheard-of, insignificant, little people to Bethlehem that first Christmas, God put it in the heart of Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world should be enrolled each in his own town? A decree for the entire world in order to move two people seventy miles! . . . God wields an empire to fulfill his word and bless his children.”

The theme I have chosen for this second week of Advent is Rejection and Refinement. As Jonah waded in all the stomach juices of the giant fish, He could have thrown himself the largest pity party and focused on God’s apparent rejection. But instead, something miraculous happened—Jonah’s heart finally turned to prayer. The prayer recorded in Jonah 2 was composed in the most rejected circumstances, but God’s spirit enabled it to be a time of refinement for Jonah.

The road to Bethlehem and Jesus’ birth was far from easy for Mary and Joseph. Mary was almost stoned for being pregnant before marrying Joseph. Joseph’s reputation was put to the test. The literal road to Bethlehem was long and treacherous. They arrived in their census town and found there was nowhere to stay, except with the animals. Mary gave birth in a setting far less clean and comfortable than she was probably expecting.

I’ve been re-listening to the audiobook of Madeleine L’Engle’s chapter book, Meet the Austins. Within the first chapters, the family experiences the sudden death of a family friend. Trying to reconcile what they know about life and death, Vicky Austin and her brother drive out to Hawk Mountain with their mom to look at the stars. Mrs. Austin says, when horrible things happen, “sometimes it's very hard to see the hand of God, instead of the blind finger of chance.”

How could all the little things that had to come together for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem happen by chance? The precision points to the very nature of God’s miraculous hands. Luke says that Mary treasured all these things in her heart. She was a smart cookie, I’m sure she noticed the intricate weaving of God’s plan as she sat with a sleeping Jesus swaddled in her arms.

The narrow way is not one of rejection. It is a journey of faithful refinement and grace.

and a Little Child Shall Lead Them

We end the first week of Advent by looking to the faith and wonder of a child.

There is a fictionalized account of Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt with toddler Jesus that my family often reads at Christmas. It is a short story entitled, Dance in the Desert, by Madeleine L’Engle. In it, L’Engle describes a scene where wild desert animals approach the caravan’s circle. The adults in the camp stand ready to defend, but Mary gently says, “wait.” As the title of the book indicates, the wild animals of the desert and toddler Jesus dance.

I believe L’Engle was thinking of Isaiah’s prophecy in chapter 11 when she wrote this story:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
    and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
    and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
    and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.
(Isaiah 11:1-9)

After the familiar Messianic verses about a branch shooting out from Jesse’s line, there is a passage that describes previously savage and gentle animals resting together in peace. It is a symbol of the enormity of the Messiah’s impact, not only on the peace of humans, but of the natural world. In the middle it says, “and a little child shall lead them.”

This is no Pied Piper situation, no animal circus on parade. This is a symbol of innocence and trust. A foreshadowing of restoration. Had Adam and Eve’s children been born in the Garden of Eden, they too would have been able to explore and play among the animals without any fear or concern.

Any young child today is full of wonder and trust not because there aren’t scary things in the world, but because they don’t know about sin and evil, danger and difficulty. And more to the point—they rely on their grownups to provide all they need. But there is a time coming, Jesus promises, when we will all be like children again: without fear, and fully surrounded by God’s loving and providing presence.

When adult Jesus taught about the Kingdom of Heaven in parables and stories, he wasn’t doing it to be obtuse or confuse. He was actually fulfilling the prophecy of Psalm 78:1-2 (as Matthew reminds us in 13:25):

“I will open my mouth in parables;
    I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

Jesus spoke in parables because wanted His listeners to respond more like children. John Pavlovitz writes about this in Week 2 of his Advent devotional, Low:

“The older we get, the more wonder-deprived we tend to become. I think the Jesus who comes low understood this, which is why his parables inserted miracles into the mundane. The kingdom of God was treasure hidden in a field; it was a seed falling into good soil; it was yeast working quietly through the dough; it was sparrows and wildflowers and pearls. It would have been impossible for his listeners to experience their ordinary days the same way after hearing him. I imagine that’s a bit of what he meant when he talked about embracing the greater life by becoming a child.”

I have the luxury of working with young children and babies in an environment that enriches this type of wonder. Have you ever gotten down on the ground next to a toddler, to be able to see things as they do? This altered vantage point helps us see ordinary things differently.

Pavlovitz invites us to enter this stance and seek God there—especially in this season of waiting we call Advent.

He goes on to say in Week 3:

“. . . I was talking to my son about the approaching Christmas season, and he said, ‘I really like the waiting. It’s fun.’ He described the time leading up to the holidays as his favorite part: the anticipation and the excitement, the electricity of looking forward to something and of counting down the days. For him, it’s far more enjoyable than the relative letdown of the day itself.”

I think I resonate a lot with that little kid. From a young age (even before I could articulate it) the mystery and wonder of Advent has delighted me. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to see how much I need the heart of Advent for the rest of my life. For life is full of waiting, and those in-between times can often be more challenging than the challenges themselves.

But Advent gives us an amazing hindsight that spans the centuries. We will never have to wait 400 years like the people of Israel did. But we can look at the silent gap between Malachi’s end Matthew’s beginning and reorient our hearts as we wait.

Pavlovitz finishes his reflection on the 400 years between the Old Testament and New Testament saying,

“. . . What is simply the turn of a page to us represents several generations of painful waiting, of awkward silence, of unresolved questions—which is why the birth story of Jesus is the perfect one to bridge those two parts of the story. It is a wonderful end to a time of anxious waiting. If we cultivate a bit of faith, that in-between time, even in difficult days, can be a hopeful space for us, a place where we can welcome transformation even with all the present unknowns.

Rather than wanting the time to pass quickly, we can actually enjoy it because we know we are being renovated.

This season may find you in painful waiting—in that sometimes frustrating before. One of the truths you can rest in is that, as with the child in Mary’s womb and the groaning world enduring those long months, there is always change taking place, always new life about to spring forth.”

The perfect trust and wonder of a young child. How ironic and wonderful that the millennia of waiting for a Messiah was fulfilled by the birth of such a child. 

 The Prince of Peace who made Himself low, for us. To bring new life. And to show us the way to everlasting peace.

When Waiting is Not About Us

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
(Luke 1:5-7)

… 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:13-17)

I’ve been reading a lot of Hannah Brencher’s daily Advent devotionals this year. Some years I gravitate towards one thing to reflect on. This year I have a feeling I’ll be bouncing around.

She says of Elizabeth’s story in Luke:

"It is far too easy to package up the story of Elizabeth and say, "See!? Elizabeth was waiting for something, and then God showed up!" Yes, this is all true. But anyone who has felt the waiting period- the loss of years and time and dreams deferred- knows the feelings, longings, and pain of another day unfulfilled leaves scars. It isn't something you get over instantly (or sometimes ever). It stays with you. It changes you.

The waiting changes us.

It turns us into different versions of ourselves."

The Bible has many stories of barren women seeking the Lord for a child. The first that comes to mind is Hannah. Like Elizabeth, Hannah did receive a child, but their years together were short. From the beginning, the child had a calling that was greater than that of being a son and heir to their birth family.

It’s easy to think of any waiting as a punishment. And in hindsight one often reduces the experience as a time when a lesson was learned. But Brencher argues that both ideas “dismiss the beauty and benevolence of God's character."

This is a bold sentence, but the waiting is not always about us.
If we look closely at the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah (from the perfect view of 2000 years later), we see that their waiting was more about God’s timing.

The baby that would grow up to be John the Baptist needed to be a contemporary of Jesus. Did he need to be the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth? I don't know. Did he need to be related to Jesus by blood? Maybe not.

There are a lot of things I am waiting on and have waited on in my life. And there have been times where I've been gifted with the ability to see why the waiting was important. Yet on this side of heaven, that is not something we are promised.

There’s a passage in Galatians 4, where Paul thinks back to the birth of Jesus and says,
"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." (Galatians 4:4-5)

I love that phrase. The fullness of time. It is beyond our understanding. And it holds so much promise.

In whatever we are waiting for, we do know this: God is with us in the waiting. Even the waiting that is only heard in groans from our hearts. When we grow weary from hoping, He does not.

There is a quote I love from author Victor Hugo. And I think it speaks to this:
“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”

Elizabeth's waiting had a finish line. A baby takes nine months to grow. I do not begrudge her for getting what she had hoped for for so long. I'm thankful for her story because it helps me have the courage to wait well. Israel's waiting for the Messiah can sometimes seem so distant and huge. But Elizabeth and Zechariah were people who lived and breathed and waited, just like you and me.



 

A New Way

For all my years of Advent reflections, I haven’t thought much about the difference between each Gospel writers’ Nativity account. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all different people, with their own literary agendas and gifts of observation. But something I recently re-read in Kelley Nikondeha's The First Advent in Palestine drew my attention to one of God’s providential parallels.

Nikondeha argues that Luke’s Gospel account gives us a “window into the Advent economy and environment”—the Galilean world in which Mary, Joseph, the shepherds lived. On the other hand, “Matthew shows us what that economy looked like through an understanding of one person's rule: that of Herod.” (p. 100).

If you know anything about King Herod, he was essentially a puppet king. Probably not even Jewish by birth, he was appointed by Rome to preside over all of Judea. As such, his reign was marked with heavy taxation, for the sake of Rome’s infamous infrastructure and his own private coffers.

This is the economic and political power into which infant Jesus would be born. But before we get to that, Matthew paints a picture of another power structure—the patriarchs and revered forefathers of the faith, the ones whose lives all pointed as archetypes of Christ. Over and over again, God referred to these greats and said: One is coming who is greater than he. Greater than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; greater than Moses or Joshua; greater than Joseph, Jesse, David and Solomon. And so much greater than Herod.

It had been millennia since God’s people walked solely by faith and trust in an economy of love and goodness. Not since the Garden of Eden had humans been free from transactional grace with God. But Matthew shows us that a Messiah is coming from the very line that began in Eden. Not only that, but He would come to make all things new. God’s people would not need to answer to the Roman/Herodian economy of tyranny and wealth as the highest authority much longer.

Not only was God’s plan to bring a new “ruler” into the mix, but the ways of connecting, encouraging, loving, and following Him were about to change.

Isaiah prophesied about it in chapter 43:

16 Thus says the Lord,
    who makes a way in the sea,
    a path in the mighty waters,
17 who brings forth chariot and horse,
    army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
    they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
18 “Remember not the former things,
    nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild beasts will honor me,
    the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
    rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21     the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.

We will talk more about the dashed Jewish expectations for the Messiah later, but for now I want to focus on the ways that Jesus courageously humbled Himself for the sake of God’s new economy. Indeed He made a way in the wilderness of death and decay—all for our sake. 

In his book, Low: an Honest Advent Devotional, John Pavlovitz quotes, “Jesus didn’t need to live here. He could have shown up, tossed out another stone slab or a rolled parchment filled with black-and-white religious do’s and don’ts, and then disappeared into the ether—leaving a neat and tidy, easily navigable religion to delineate our every decision. Instead, he chose to live life alongside flawed human beings, in messy and meandering trips into wheatfields and lepers’ homes and leaky boats.” (from Week 1 Tuesday: This is Not a Test)

Jesus, the antithesis of highly seated King Herod, came to the lowest of places, in one of the lowest forms, to show us a new way. A new way of loving God and others. A new way of living out our faith. And best of all, a promise that one heavenly day, all things would be made new.

 

Prepare the Way of the Lord

I don’t feel ready for Advent this year. Just a few short weeks ago I hadn’t even pulled my winter coat out from the back of the closet. I still see colorful leaves hanging onto their trees with determination. Yet however much I don’t feel prepared, here we are: the first Sunday of Advent.

It’s funny, when you long for something, but are still surprised by its appearance. Into the silent waiting, distractions (of every color and sort) have a way of making the expected slide in under the radar.

I wonder if this is how the Israelites felt after their exile in Babylon and then 400 years of prophetic silence. First on the community’s prayer requests was the arrival of a Messiah. Yet when He actually came, no one seemed ready. Much less prepared for a Messiah wrapped in a baby’s clothes and wails.

Only a handful of God’s people were still living in active, curious expectation for a Savior. For them, God’s plans and purposes were a mystery to unravel. For so many others, the oppressive life of being a Hebrew under the thumb of whatever empire was in control was all they would handle. Routines became the norm; waiting the ever-repeating refrain.

How wonderful that we serve a God who does not leave us alone to our own devices. The whole of human history is marked by sign-posts pointing the way to the Messiah.

The gospel of Luke could have begun a lot of different ways. Matthew chose to jog his reader’s memories by recounting thousands of years of family genealogy. But Luke likes the reader to do some of the connection work, and opens with a story of a man named Zechariah.

Luke 1: 5-25
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah,[a] of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” 21 And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 22 And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. 23 And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

24 After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 25 “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

After 400 years of prophetic silence, God chose to sneak up on a priest and strike him voiceless when he didn’t make the immediate connections.

I do not want to be like Zechariah. I may not feel ready for Advent, but I want my heart and mind to remain curiously open to God’s mysteries. The miracle of the Incarnation is just as relevant for us to today as it was for a family living in the Judean countryside roughly two thousand years ago. May we have the eyes to see it.

Isaiah 30:3-5
3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all flesh shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

He is not Finished Yet

When we call Jesus the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty, God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace, how does that change our perspective on waiting?

During this third week of Advent we are focusing on Jesus as the Everlasting Father. There are many things about Christ that we can equate with eternity—His eternal kingdom, the image of Him as the Word become Flesh, the eternal communion between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One of the clearest images of eternity found in the Nativity story is that of God being born as a tiny baby. God’s timeline has always been different from ours. He had no need to arrive on Earth as a grown adult, ready to engage people with His message of forgiveness, healing, and love. Having existed eternally before the Incarnation, God has infinite time to bring about His plan of redemption.

Jesus’ birthday, the day we celebrate as Christmas, is not the beginning, nor is it the end of Jesus’ story, of our story. Christmas lands in the middle of eternity as a pivotal moment. The day Jesus was born, nothing would ever be the same again. From the moment of his conception to His last Earthly breath on the cross, Jesus has been acting out one unique truth about God: He is not finished yet.

If everything feels like a failure, it is because God is not done working. If there doesn’t appear to be any hope left to hold onto, it doesn’t mean God has abandoned you. On the contrary, He is working and moving—all on our behalf.

Our waiting may be 25 days, or it may be 25 years. Either way, we don’t stand alone in our waiting. With every sign of resignation and prayer of relinquishment, we are held by strong, eternal hands.

In this we have hope: He is not finished yet.

". . . Weeps and Waits, in Hope"

This evening I want to share something to prepare us for Blue Christmas on the 21st. This is a quote from Sherri Gragg's book, Advent: The Christmas Story.

 

Anchor of Hope

I want to explore something I haven’t had time to research or think about; a topic I may blunder a bit. I also want to be cognizant of the women (and men) who reading these thoughts may be triggered by current or former pain. You are seen and loved.

In her chapter on Mary, Kelly Nikondeha makes a brief comment about the gospel writer’s contrast between Mary’s virginity with Elizabeth’s barrenness (p.46). I don’t know if I have ever picked up on that comparison before. Both circumstances bring to mind a sense of longing, and buried pain. We may immediately feel more empathy for Elizabeth who had dealt with unexplainable infertility for her whole married life. Possibly Mary’s longing was rooted in her desire for the protection of a husband in the tough and wild landscape of Roman-run Galilee. Only, before her marriage could be finalized, she was “found to be with child”—a scandalous offense, and the very opposite of security in the home of a husband. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about how Mary was treated when her family and community found out she was expecting a baby outside of marriage (I wonder if they would have even wrapped their minds around the idea at her still being a virgin—that wasn’t how biology worked), but we don’t have to look far to understand the cultural expectations of the time.

For both women, virginity (though pregnant) and barrenness were huge burdens to bear.

We aren’t given a glimpse at Elizabeth’s mind and heart prior to hearing Zechariah’s message from the Angel Gabriel, but during her confinement she remarks, “The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” (Luke 1:25). Being the wife of a priest, she held some regard in her own rite. But in a culture so centered on the blessing of children, surely her childlessness was a topic of shameful gossip among her neighbors.

Even after receiving news of such a miraculous promise and beginning to feel the quivering of a baby in her womb, a lesser woman would have held doubt and pessimism. Thoughts like, “this is too good to be true,” or “I don’t deserve this” could have swum through her mind.

Yet, when Mary comes to visit Elizabeth, we are told in Luke’s gospel that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaims: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:41-45)

Her joy is doubled. And it is infectious. (The Holy Spirit was definitely helping a lot.) Mary’s next words (according to the writing of Luke’s gospel) are what we call the Magnificat—from the Latin, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Instead of laying out a litany of her woes: scary visit from an angel, pregnant before being with Joseph, Joseph wanting to divorce her (though graciously quietly), any and all scorn from her community, Mary only has praise for her Lord.

In her Advent devotional, The Season of Waiting (and waiting, and waiting . . .) writer, professor, and speaker Kate Bowler explains longing as “the experience of feeling the lack, the recognition, that things are not as they should be” (p. 18). She describes this as the quintessential feeling of Advent. “Advent recognizes the absence of peace, yet the exquisite certainty of its coming” (p. 19).

On this eve before the third week of Advent, I wonder at the ways God prepared Mary and Elizabeth for their separate “comings.” We aren’t privy to their inner thoughts, their hopes and dreams; only the way they choose to respond.

In this case, their actions speak louder than their words (and their words are glorious!)

The virginity of Mary and the barrenness of Elizabeth aren’t perfect opposites, but their contrast can help us see God’s response to all of our waitings, especially those rooted in “groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

I’ll end with this from Kate Bowler’s devotional:

“Sometimes in the darkness, we dare not hope because it feels too expensive.
There is no energy available for that, humanly speaking.
But hope isn’t wishful thinking.
It’s an anchor into the future.
Because of this, we can bless even our darkening days,
knowing that the earth will once again tilt toward the light.
And it will be a glory that blazes everywhere,
though now we catch only glimpses.
In the meantime, and that’s what we have—the meantime—
let’s come into the light and bless the waiting, because it will not be in vain” (p.22).

Mary and Elizabeth’s pain was redeemed in miraculous ways. We can’t expect anything less for women in Jesus’ family tree (look at Ruth and Rahab!). Yet on this side of eternity, many of us won’t see the newness God promises as an Earthly blessing. His blessings are both miraculous and mysterious. And because of that, we can both rejoice with these Advent women, and be Advent women ourselves, longing in hope.

Paradox and Promise

Today we light the second candle of Advent. As we move from Waiting to Anticipating, the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth as told by Luke acts as a hinge between these two themes. Luke jumps right into his book with Zechariah and Elizabeth’s story. In modern Bibles, the header reads, “The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold”, but let’s pretend for a little while that we don’t know that. Let us walk with this elderly couple as they step out the door that special day, having no idea what news was going to greet them.

In a society where it was expected that righteousness resulted in blessings, Zechariah the priest, a figure head of righteousness in his community, was missing out on one of the biggest blessing of all: children. Kelley Nikondeha’s second chapter of The First Advent in Palestine helps shape the context of Zechariah’s predicament:

“This dissonance is deafening. Righteous and barren. The advent narrative of Luke begins here, with a paradox.” (p. 28)

As a priest, Zechariah could expect a certain standing within the social structure maintained by the Romans in Judea. However, Zechariah was not of the priestly elite, but an ordinary community priest. On this particular day, he was chosen to fulfill his twice-annual duty in the inner holy areas of the temple.  

“Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense” (Luke 1:8-9).

Part of Zechariah’s duty included praying for the people as the incense was lit. The very people represented by those standing outside the temple—fellow Judeans living oppressed lives under Caesar’s Pax Romana and under the puppet king, Herod.

Nikondeha observes: 

“As an ordinary priest he stood in a unique position in Judaean society, able to see the economic inequity and just feel its pressure. Perhaps these paradoxes were the heaviness he carried into the temple as he stood in front of the altar of incense. . . Zechariah entered the holy space yoked with barrenness: unfruitful land, sterile futures caused by Caesar’s so-called peace, and the absence of future generations in his own priestly line. He carried the ache with him as he went inside to the altar. The first whiff of holy smoke escaped and ascended like a prayer.” (p. 29-30)

Zechariah was there to intercede for his community and that of the holy city of Jerusalem, but we all know from experience how hard it is to compartmentalize a worry. It seeps into our thoughts, unbidden, at the least opportune times. But this was a house of prayer. . . God had been hearing Elizabeth and Zechariah’s prayers for as long as they had been praying them, but this was the time and place He chose to enact the next phase of His plan to change the course of history.

“And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.  And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.  And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.’

And Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.’ And the angel answered him, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.’” (Luke 1:11-20).

You can imagine the chaos that ensued as Zechariah exited the temple. Maybe earnest onlookers were hoping to hear a prophetic word from Zechariah’s the deep sanctums of the temple, or to receive the Aaronic Blessing from the priest as a benediction. But Zechariah could do neither. He must have had a thousand things he wanted to say, but God had taken away his voice.

I’ve never stopped to wonder about those silent days as Zechariah finished his bi-annual course of service at the temple. He must have had time remaining in his duties. Was he given special compensation due to his inability to pray out loud? And what about Zechariah’s second priestly course, six months after the first? He would have still been speechless.

Speechless. But still a learned man. I wonder how he spent his days. Did he dig deep into the Scriptures to learn more about what the angel had said? How much more attentive must he have been to Elizabeth and the growing child in her womb. And when cousin Mary arrived with a miraculous pregnancy story of her own, Zechariah could only sit in dumbfounded wonder as the women vocalized prayers and praises not regularly heard from women at that time. Had anything he’d learned about God prepared him for this?

But one thing was true: Zechariah and Elizabeth were no longer just waiting. The Lord had blessed them with a miraculous promise—a promise they would see fulfilled in a short nine month, and a larger promise that would start to take root with the help of their son. Anticipation and hope—feelings not felt in Judea for quite some time. In this first chapter of Luke’s gospel, things were already beginning to change.

Waiting in Traffic with Immanuel

It’s been a few days since I’ve written. I set out to write something last night, but before I would even begin to type, I felt my eyes drooping into sleep. . .

As the workdays end, I often feel like I have sufficient energy to tackle the evening with dinner-making, dishing-washing, and (this season) Advent-writing. But then I get into my car and head out on my commute home. By the time I’ve parked on my street, lethargy is seeping in. There are many reasons for this; chronic pain and the early setting sun don’t help. But this being Advent, I began reflecting on the longness of journeys home and the reality that chaos and uncertainty are exhausting. Commuting is essentially an exercise in perseverance (and often long-suffering!). For those two take a train or bus, it can be s fairly passive waiting for movement from point A to point B. Driving, one gets the added disadvantage of contributing to the ebb and flow of with little to no ability to adjust course or speed up.

All I want to do is get home. I don’t want to wait.

How much of life is like that? And how much of Advent is like that? I often find myself wanting to rush through Week 1 of Advent, to get the “waiting” theme over with. While there is rich theology in the exploration of hope and longing, and it’s pretty much the principal motif of this blog, sometimes I just want to “arrive” at the Nativity narrative. It seems a little more ordered, less open for interpretation, yet at the same time ready for deep contemplation.

Writer Laura Jean Truman reflects on this idea of waiting (in traffic). She says,

“Brake lights all the way down. . . I want to reach into this picture and wipe away everything in front of this sunset like ugly doodles on a whiteboard—clean out cars and utility polls with a wet rag and see the sunset that’s all clogged up behind chaos.

Instead, here we are in Christmas traffic, vibrating with bad news and family drama and fears for ourselves, our neighbors, and our earth.

I used to try to make holy and tidy Advent seasons, to wipe away everything unpleasant or ugly or too-human.

But if God was born in a garage during tax season on a roadtrip—maybe the work of Advent isn’t trying (uselessly) to wipe away everything chaotic. Maybe Advent is crying in the walk-in closet - wondering if Mary cried, too, that she had her first baby so far from home and family and friends. Maybe it’s showing up imperfectly, reminding ourselves that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing poorly, tending gently to our shame - wondering if Joseph felt shame, too, about inadequacies and imperfections as a dad raising this Messiah.

Advent isn’t for the ones who have succeed in wiping chaos away. The good news of Advent is “this too shall pass”. . . We are the weary world that isn’t rejoicing yet. Advent is for us. We are the people walking in darkness who don’t even believe we’ll see light. Advent is for us.

Advent honors the ugly and chaotic, and doesn’t tell us to pretend it’s OK when it’s not. Advent doesn’t say “act hopeful!” Advent doesn’t tell us to stop crying.

Advent whispers:
whether you feel hope or fear,
whether you wait patiently or anxiously,
whether you’re trudging forward or gave up and sat down on the path,  
the good news is that God comes anyway—right in the ugly. Right in the mess.”

I’ve never felt like my practice of Advent writing has shied away from the messiness of life, but this year it’s been really hard to focus. It feels a little bit like being in a traffic jam.

Jesus didn’t have to deal with cars during his time on Earth, but he did do his fair share of traveling (even with caravans as a small child). And He never declared those journeys as lost time. Maybe a part of His divine nature wished He could move through time and space in the blink of an eye, but as a human, he was humbly walking under the Father’s lead. And in God’s economy, nothing is wasted.

If we’ve learning anything from Scripture it’s that God uses any and all thing for His glory and our good. It’s on the journeys that we learn unexpected lessons. Some journeys take longer than others. Some feel more full of chaos. But the good news is that Jesus is there, right alongside us. Immanuel, God with us.

The Life-Cycle of a Tree Stump

Seeds are really good at waiting. The seeds of trees have to have amazing perseverance. From the time they are dropped in the ground (by human hand, animal droppings, or “buried treasure”) until the tiniest sprout becomes a towering tree, most trees in the forest span years longer than a human life.

There are many images of trees and seeds in the Bible. The tree of life, the faith of a mustard seed, the cedars of Lebanon, the fig tree. But what about the tree when all that’s left is a stump? How many more years before a mighty cedar (or maybe it was a cypress, sycamore, acacia, balsam, or juniper) falls from storm or carpenter’s hand. And all that’s left is a stump.

Isaiah writes in chapter 11 (v.1-10):

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
    and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
    and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
    as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.”

It sounds like something, or Someone, magnificent is going to come from a withered tree stump. What does that mean? There is historical and theological significance to this motif, as we’ll see in a moment. But agriculturally, this is not necessarily an anomaly. New branches shoot up from tree stumps all the time. What’s amazing is the time it takes. Time that cannot be rushed because the Creator created the life-cycle of seeds and plants just the way he did.

On R.C. Sproul’s ministry website, Ligonier, there is a devotional based on this passage of scripture. The author writes,

“Let us not miss the significance of all the prophet is saying. First, Isaiah speaks of ‘the stump of Jesse’ (v. 1). The image here is of a tree that has been so devastated that only a stump remains. Jesse, of course, was the father of King David (1 Sam. 16:1–13), so Isaiah is speaking of the Davidic line of kings. . . [But] David's line would decline to such a degree that it would be essentially left for dead. History tells us this is exactly what happened, with David's royal dynasty all but dying out as a result of God's judgment of His people through Assyria and Babylon. Nevertheless, Isaiah also saw that while the Davidic line would seem to be dead, life would remain within the stump. A shoot—life barely detectable at first—would emerge. But once this shoot went forth, it would become a mighty tree. A king of humble origins would be a signal for the nations after the exile (Isa. 11:2–10).”

The author goes on to reference John Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah. He emphasizes that the shoot from the stump will come “from Jesse”, not “from David.” Calvin believes this speaks to how low the family line had sunk. It no longer appeared to be a royal family (emphasis on David the king), but a lowly peasant family (which they were, emphasis on Jesse the patriarch).

Sound familiar? A peasant family from the line of Jesse? When David was first anointed king he was truly the least obvious choice. As Jesus grew in his ministry, he was certainly not the leader-type or messiah people expected.

Humble beginnings. Small seeds. Miraculous outcomes.

One of the things that fascinates me the most is when I see my smallness against God's bigness. The movement of time and space and history up against God's eternal plan. Scripture is full of these images we can see woven through the Old and New Testaments, all adding up to the story we are retelling this season. The story of Jesus’ arrival.

When sin first entered the Garden of Eden (another tree!), God could have enacted his plan of salvation right then and there. But instead, He demonstrated great patience in order to unfold a plan that would teach us important lessons about faith and hope and love. For those who celebrate Advent with a Jesse Tree, the ornaments do just that: recount the rich story of God’s faithful and often astounding redemption design.

God is in the business of making all things new. And while supernatural shortcuts (miracles) are known to occur, in His providence, the normal, garden-variety life is lived according to the Creator’s intended rhythm. Things take time. The cycle of living things takes time.

I don’t think a tree knows what it means to be impatient, but the waiting still takes perseverance and care from outside of itself. Human waiting is hard. But just as a gardener watches over the things in his garden, we can rest assured that God is with us as we wait. He is holding this promise in His open hands: because of the Shoot that sprung from Jesse’ stump, we too have the hope of new life. And the resting place will be glorious.

 

"A Thrill of Hope the Weary World Rejoices"

Many of the songs we sing during Advent and Christmas carry deep theology, but we often miss it for the comforting and catchy tunes, as well as the nostalgia and tradition.

Have you ever stopped to read the lyrics to “O Holy Night?” Originally written as a French poem in 1843, the text was soon put to music, and then in 1855 it was translated into English by John Dwight, who was a minister, abolitionist, and music critic. His translation is a song of juxtapositions, showcasing the light of Jesus’ birth against the world’s darkness. It reminds us that Jesus’ coming changes everything.

And then, in the fifth line of verse one: “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.”

There is no punctuation to help us determine the causality of this simple, yet impactful, phrase. Does a thrill of hope cause the weary world to rejoice? Is the weary world proclaiming, “a thrill of hope!”? Should we just enjoy the poetic rhythm and not try to analyze the meaning?

I did a quick Google search for this fifth line. I shouldn’t have been surprised. In the last few years, a lot of people have been writing about our weary world, and wondering when we will be able to rejoice again, and what we will have to rejoice about. These have been hard years. Hope has not felt like a thrill, sudden and exciting. Often, hope has been hesitant and held tightly with uncertainty. That has been our reality as humans prone to disease, disaster, and disorder on this planet Earth.

But if we were to take our view beyond ourselves, to the far reaches of heaven, from whence Jesus came, wouldn’t we see hope differently? Jesus did not come for a world full of hope and promise. He came for a world full of weariness and worry.

Author, Shannan Martin writes, “Without the weariness there is no thrill of hope.”
This doesn’t mean we seek out or celebrate weariness. But it does mean there is no shame in our need for a Savior. We can honestly say, “for when I am weak, He is strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10b).

Weary and waiting, let us be a people who expect the thrill of hope that only Jesus can bring.

Awaiting, We Wait on the Lord

Today we lit the first candle of Advent: Wait.

In the following weeks we’ll see Anticipate, and Prepare, and Celebrate.

Looking back, there are many seasons in life that closely mirror these four themes. They are seasons that hold hesitancy, with maybe a splash of pessimism and a heavy dose of realism. We all wait for something. Often not letting hope get the better of us. We don’t want to be disappointed, after all. But then we are given a glimpse of what’s ahead, and our hearts shift towards anticipation. There is something worth hoping for. And yet, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, so our expectation remains passive and hesitant. Then, all at once, things begin to move. The patterns shift and things start falling into place. It’s time to prepare. To ready the stage for what is coming next. We are still waiting, but now it is active, and full of palatable hope. There is an assurance that all this waiting has been worthwhile and valuable. Then one day, we realize we have cause to celebrate. The thing we have been waiting for has arrived!

As humans, we are prone to such fickle emotions. If only we could sustain this joy infinitely. Instead, our celebrations often peter out and we find ourselves back at square one much sooner than we’d wish.

Were it not for divine intervention, we would get nowhere with this model of expectation.

And so, God placed eternity in our hearts. A seed of longing that pulls (and sometimes drags) us on this life journey from Waiting to Celebration. During Advent we are invited to literally “act” out our hope, recalling time and again the seasons of lack against the Lord’s abundant faithfulness.

Last year, Tish Harrison Warren wrote, “Advent is a season of hope, and part of practicing hope is noticing where we need it.”

Where do we need hope? What lament are we trying to name?

Those are personal questions. And yet, at Advent they are universal and timeless questions. In Advent, we feel the yearnings of the ancient Israelites alongside our own.

The Advent narrative has its origins way back in the Garden of Eden, however within the geographical timeline of the Biblical history, what springs to mind is the gap between Malachi and Matthew (and Luke, our main Nativity narrator). A single, thin piece of paper separates these two books in most of our Bibles, and yet the calendars tell us about 400 years passed between Malachi’s final prophecy and Zechariah’s priestly obligations recorded in Luke.

In her book, The First Advent in Palestine, Kelley Nikondeha offers a unique, trauma-informed perspective on these so called “silent years.” Drawing from the Apocrypha (books outside of the accepted canon of Scripture), Nikondeha recalls the story of the Maccabees she read about in her mother’s Catholic Bible. If you are familiar with the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, then you’ve probably heard of the Maccabees (“Hammers”) —the guerilla-style fighters who claimed back the temple from the Seleucid Empire.

Even as a student of history, I had forgotten when these events took place along the Biblical timeline. They land smack dab in the middle of the 400 “years of silence.” Only, Israel wasn’t just sitting around peacefully. These were centuries wrought by captivity and pain. Long before the Roman problem we meet in the Gospels, the people of Israel suffered under a long line of empires. So, it seems only natural that “messiah” types would arise to help save the day. The Maccabees definitely fit the bill. They had a miraculous victory and an even more miraculous re-lighting of the temple’s eternal flame (modern day menorah). And yet, their liberation was short lived. Their triumph had come through violence and despite their success in re-kindling the temple light, the Maccabees did not choose to inaugurate God’s peace. Before long, Israel was under the thump of another empire yet again.

Many faith traditions do not have the story of the Maccabees in their canon of Scripture. We may never know this side of heaven why God allowed some stories to be removed and others retained. But the story of the Maccabees shows us that waiting on God should not be passive. We are not called to take up weapons and “hammer” upon our earthly enemies, but there is a much better set of spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-18) available to us. Because while we wait, and watch, and work, we do indeed battle darkness.

Nikondeha says,

“The stories told around and about the birth of Jesus set our sights on a deep theology for troubled times, then and now. Advent pays attention to the people, places and politics of generations awaiting God’s arrival. To approach Advent in its fullness, we approach it from an uncommon entry point: the darkness of suffering, the struggle of a long waiting.

Confronting the hard landscapes of the past allows us to understand the terrain God entered one starry night. The first Advent began in darkness and danger. . .  Advent came to a traumatized landscape and people.” (p. 6)

While God did not send another prophet after Malachi for 400 years, and the Maccabees personally felt that God had no guiding words for them, He was by no means silent. He was upholding His people as they suffered long, with hope and small flickerings of light.

“What does it mean to say, ‘God is with us?’” Nikondeha asks. “It's harder—and more hopeful—than strands of twinkling lights. When we engage the darkness before God's arrival, we come closer not only to the first Advent but also to each one since. In Advent, we learn that God is always coming to our troubled times” (p.23).

So, we end with a different look of the word, Wait. This Advent, as we await whatever we are waiting for, let us remember to wait on the Lord. For, if He is with us, then He surely knows the landscape of our troubles, and holds it all in His hands.

Beacons of Comfort

 

 

1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her that her warfare is ended,
    that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
    double for all her sins.

3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all flesh shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
The Word of God Stands Forever

6 A voice says, “Cry!”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
    surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

9 Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news;
 lift up your voice with strength,
    O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
 lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah,
    “Behold your God!”
10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
    and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense before him.
11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
    he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
    and gently lead those that are with young.
- Isaiah 40:1-11

This is a familiar Advent passage. It speaks obvious comfort and hope. Indeed, the original hearers were receiving a much more cheerful message that Isaiah’s previous prophecies. Here, the people of God are at the tail end of their Babylonian captivity. They are about to be released and sent back home.

One might expect God to send a message of comfort at the beginning of an exile, not the end. But the Lord knew His people. These cries of “comfort!” are meant to prepare the Israelites. Remember from Day 1, God promised always include His preparing. He is readying the people for two things: their return home, and His return as well.

As with any familiar passage, it’s easy to take the meaning, or apparent meaning, for granted. But Paula Gooder reflects on a few amazing things that our modern English translations sorely miss: First, verse 1 is a plural command. She writes, “God is not here telling his prophet to go and comfort his people. Instead, the cry goes out, ‘is there anyone out there who will comfort my people?’” The Lord’s heart for Jerusalem’s restoration swells as He desires comfort for His people.

The second fascinating thing about these verses, according to Gooder, is the number of voices speaking. (I have left the verse numbers in the passage above to help you follow along).
•    Verse 1 begins with God speaking—asking, “is there anyone who will comfort my people?”
•    Verse 3-5 continue with a new, unnamed voice.
•    The beginning of verse 6 adds another voice, though Gooder notes it could be the same one again from v.3-5.
•    The second half of verse 6 is spoken by “I”—the prophet Isaiah
•    Verse 9 concludes with a command for Zion/Jerusalem to speak.

This chain of dialogue can be likened to the passing of a baton in a race, beginning with God and ending with the heart of his people, Jerusalem. Following the exile, the city lay broken and bruised, yet this message commands Jerusalem to rise up and proclaim the good news: the Lord is coming!

Reading this, an image from the third Lord of the Rings movie springs to mind. The small Hobbit, Pippin, musters great courage and climbs high above the city of Minas Tirith to light the warning beacon. Before long, we see beacons being lit along the White Mountains, ultimately notifying the land of Rohan that Gondor is in danger.

For Jerusalem, the present danger has almost passed. This is not a call to arms for war, but it is a call to arms. The message of Isaiah 40 is not passive. It is a cry for transformation. And it includes a very active waiting. For God is on the move, and we have a job to do.

My Bible’s commentary on verse 3 puts it this way:

“Preparing a straight highway means removing obstacles and rolling out the red carpet for the coming of the Lord. The wasteland is a picture of life's trials and sufferings. We are not immune to these, but our faith need not be hindered by them. Isaiah told the people to prepare to see God work. John the Baptist used these words as he challenges the people to prepare for the coming Messiah (as seen in Matthew 3:3).”

We surely live in a desert, a valley, a wasteland full of trials and suffering. But it will not always be so. “Prepare the way of the Lord,” the prophets shout. This Advent, as we look forward to the second Advent, let us let God comfort us with His steadfastness, and say together, “Behold, your God.”