Well, it’s Christmas Eve. It’s the exclamation point of Advent!
For the past four Sundays at our Church, we’ve talked about Advent, and different families have shared Scripture readings intended to make us pause and consider what it means to be a people of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.
But do you ever wonder, “What is Advent?” We talk about it, we celebrate it, but what IS it? Advent is a season in the Church where we anticipate the coming of Jesus. But Advent speaks to more than the birth of Jesus. It’s about our longing, our desire, and our deep expectation that the best is yet to come.
And as we wait, we wait with a real sense that all is not right – there is a brokenness in our world and our hearts tell us that Something is missing.
And so we wait, with an ache.
We don’t wait very well, do we? When I was in high school, and I wanted to go see a movie, there were basically three ways I could find out what movie was playing and when it was playing. I could check in the newspaper. 30 years ago, everybody got the newspaper. And it would have the cinema information in it, but I still had to wait until the paper was delivered. I could also call the theater, but sometimes when you called, you got a busy signal. BEEP BEEP BEEP. Then you had to wait and hit “redial.” I wore that button out! And lastly, if I was really desperate, I could just drive by the theater. If I was on a date, you would kind of guess and say, “Well, I think the movie will be on around 7:30, so let’s drive by at 7 to check. And if there’s time, we’ll squeeze in some Mickey D’s.”
Now, the digital world is at our fingertips. If I asked today’s high school kids what was playing at the Bloomington theater, they would jump on their phone, hit the web and tell me everything I wanted to know as fast as Google could spit out the information. But have you noticed this – it seems as if the ease and speed with which we can get information has actually made us less patient. If you’re trying to connect to the web, and you have to actually wait 6-7 seconds for Google, people just freak out – “Man, this is taking FOREVER! What kind of cheap Wi-Fi is this? Where is 4G when you need it!”
But here’s what I think – waiting can be healthy. We too often cheat people out of the joy of anticipation. Who remembers as a kid when the Sears Wish Book would come in the mail? That was AWESOME, wasn’t it? What was the first thing that you did with the Wish Book? You started circling all of the stuff that you wanted, right? I mean, by Christmas, that catalog would just be trashed – all the pages would be tattered from you just going through it over and over and over. We deeply anticipated Christmas morning, so much so that it was really hard to get to sleep. I can actually remember having this inner conversation with myself, “If you just close your eyes, it will seem like just a second until you wake up and then it will be CHRISTMAS!”
So because we had to wait, we had this consuming sense of anticipation for what Christmas would bring.
In Romans 8, Paul writes that “19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
And so we celebrate Advent with a sense of pain, as Paul reminds us that our longing is much like the pains of child-birth. And we wait. And we remember that it was on Christmas that God sent our Savior. And tonight, we gather together to celebrate God’s faithfulness; because there was a first Advent with the birth of Christ, we place our hope in a second Advent when Jesus will return for His bride, the Church.
Why do we celebrate Advent? Because Advent reminds us that God has not abandoned the world. It reminds us that Hope is real. And Advent reminds us that Rescue is coming again.
