What Are You Waiting For?

“And now, O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.”
Psalm 39:7

Advent, the beginning of the church calendar, is a time of waiting and preparation. Advent means “coming” and refers to the coming of the Christ child and the second coming of Christ. This holiday season has a celebratory mood, anticipating Christmas, the birth of baby Jesus, and the expectation of “joy to the world.”

But Kelley Nikondeha in her book, First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope, introduces us to a competing narrative where hardship lives alongside joy. And in the darkness, God shows up. She writes, “What does it mean to say God is with us? 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.”

Nikondeha tells the story of a people who are living under Caesar’s hard-won Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) and the significant cost to their communities. Men were forced into battle, women and children were starving and subjected to harsh treatment. There were widespread disparities and cruelty. These conditions, rather than the serene images on Christmas cards, were the daily occurrences of people under Caesar’s dominance. However, this is when God chose to become human and bring an alternative to Caesar’s peace. This is when God’s love for us led him to a plan that begins with exchanging his divinity for the humanity of a vulnerable baby.

Furthermore, the people who received God’s plan were not kings, warriors, or heroes. They were a poor, teenage girl and an old priest who were human and vulnerable. And in their humanity, they responded like we do. Sometimes we are jubilant, like Mary, who received news she would give birth to the Christ child and responded with faith and gratitude. Sometimes we are more like Zechariah, who was also given the news of a birth but responded with doubt and uncertainty. He was unbelieving though he was a man of faith, and he and his wife had prayed many years to be able to announce a birth.

Zechariah was like many of us who wait and pray for that promotion, for our adult child to reconcile, for health to be restored, or for the longed-for child to come. We, like Zechariah, have our doubts. However, God’s love pushes through our doubts and invites us to turn what may seem like useless waiting into a time of preparation. A time when God’s love prepares our hearts and replaces our doubts with certainty. And a time when our wait shifts our focus from what we lack to God’s promise to fill us up. These are promises of Advent.

We, like Zechariah, have our doubts. However, God’s love pushes through our doubts and invites us to turn what may seem like useless waiting into a time of preparation.

Trusting in the Dark

During an Advent worship service many years ago, a former pastor sang a song during the service titled “Hold Back the Night” that I remember more than twenty years later. You may wonder, “What kind of Christmas carol was that?” (Everybody knows you sing Christmas carols during Advent.) I consider it an Advent song because it speaks of hope and joy. The words remind us not only that Christ is coming again—definitely an Advent message—but that God is present with us now. My pastor sang that “Advent” song because God answered his prayers and he survived a heart attack. He sang to remind us that Advent’s message of “God is with us” is the antidote to the despair of darkness. In part, the lyrics are: “Hold back the night. Give me strength to fight. I’ll do Your will if you just say to my soul: peace, be still.”

My thoughts went to my former Pastor and his testimony this year because my year has been challenging. In that song of hope and hardship he sang years ago I am reminded that our trust in God deepens when life is unpredictable. Advent can be a hard time for anyone for whom Christmas can bring more sadness than joy. The longer nights can limit activity and increase loneliness. Whether the darkness is actually due to the season or metaphorical due to personal, professional, or political turmoil, some of us can understand the longing of my pastor’s song to “hold back the night.”

Yet, it is in this darkness that we may find a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God. In his book, Dark Night of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals, Thomas Moore states, “The darkness is natural, one of life’s processes. There may be some promise, the mere suggestion that life is going forward, even though you have no sense of where you are headed. It’s a time of waiting and trusting.” This is the work of Advent, waiting and trusting. Allow yourself to sit in this season where there is more darkness than light and allow yourself to trust the process God has begun in your life.

This is the work of Advent, waiting and trusting. Allow yourself to sit in this season where there is more darkness than light and allow yourself to trust the process God has begun in your life.

Waiting with Purpose

Advent is a reminder that God’s love never fails and he will bring that process to completion. Trusting that God is in the process is an opportunity to observe Advent in a new way. Rather than preparing for Christmas, prepare for a season of waiting. Allow waiting with purpose to become part of your process as you wait for God to reveal what you’ve been anticipating and hoping for.

Rather than preparing for Christmas, prepare for a season of waiting.

And if the normal frenzied activity of Advent is part of your tradition leading up to Christmas, then consider departing from that routine. Zechariah had silence imposed upon him because of his doubt of God’s providence. What if you imposed a time of silence during Advent to minimize your doubts and calm your fears? Give yourself the spiritual gift of listening for God while you are waiting for more clarity and more direction.

Practicing the Examen

This ancient practice of the examen is a five-step prayer practice created as a way of being mindful of God’s love and presence. As you move from Advent to the holy nights of Christmas and into the celebrations of the New Year think about integrating the examen into your spiritual rituals. This practice is described in St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. I adapt it here. Please revise for your own daily practice:

1. Centering: Become still in a quiet place and invite God’s presence into your preparations. Meditate on how you feel knowing God’s love is with you always.
2. Gratitude: Give thanks for God’s love for you that never fails. Express your gratitude by showing love to others.
3. Review: Reflect on where God’s love showed up in your life today/this week. Where can you have shown more love for others? Pay attention to where you can give yourself more love.
4. Sorrow: Connect to your sorrow, grief, loneliness. Feel the love of God supporting you.
5. Response: As you wait to celebrate the birth of the Christ child and for the birth of what you’re waiting for, be reminded that not even doubt can separate you from the love of God. You may pray this prayer or one of your own:

A Prayer for Resting in God’s Love

God of Goodness, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me. I thank you that there is no human experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me.

If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself in the darkest valley of my life, you are there. Teach me today to love you more. Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the simple trusting heart of a child.
– Author Unknown

This Advent will become for me a time to “come away for a while and rest” as Jesus exhorted his disciples to do in Mark 6:31. My usual frenzied activity can diminish the richness and value of Advent when I don’t balance it with stillness and reflection. Allow this final week of Advent to be your time to wait for the revelation of God who shows up, even in the darkness. Before you rush into the “merry” of Christmas, pray the examen to deepen your awareness of what you’re waiting for. And trust in the deep and abiding love of God that gives you the hope and strength to rejoice even in the darkness.

A very short “non-obvious” Advent playlist

• Hold Back the Night–Rev. Charles H. Nicks, Jr.
• The Presence of the Lord is Here–Byron Cage
• It Is Well With My Soul–Wintley Phipps
• O Come, O Come Emmanuel —the Piano Guys (ok—this is an obvious Advent song)
• Jesus Loves Me—Whitney Houston