Advent

Advent is a season of waiting. We wait for the coming King, for Christ to be born, God with us, Emmanuel. We sing lyrics like “Come, thou long expected Jesus,” and “O come, o come Emmanuel,” and light candles in the darkness to remember the coming light.

I was reminded today that waiting is countercultural to us in America. Waiting for anything – for our clothes to be washed, for the microwave to beep – can feel like agony, a waste of time. Waiting doesn’t come naturally to us. It makes us uncomfortable.

But still we wait in Advent. And I’ve learned that often we also wait in death. I was waiting for my mom to die for 20 months. It wasn’t waiting for a cure, or waiting for her to improve. It was waiting for her to decline, for her to sleep all day, for her to eventually never wake up.

Most of the time, when I think of waiting for her death, it isn’t something that ends joyfully, it wasn’t a beautiful fulfillment of my expectations. But today I remember that her death wasn’t all that I was truly waiting for. I take my words from Zechariah’s song, after he waited for years to have a son:

By the tender mercy of our God
the dawn from on high broke upon her,
to give light to those of she who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide her feet into the way of peace.

Today I was reminded that as I waited for her death, I also waited for this – for mercy, for the dawn to break on her, for her to be guided into the way of peace. I waited for this light that shone even in the midst of the shadow. I waited for death, but I also waited in hope, for the coming light of the baby Jesus.

May the lights and the candles in the face of the darkness remind me of that this Advent season. May the coming of Emmanuel give me hope in the face of despair. And may we all be guided this year into the way of peace.