The Great Last Advent

    Until last year, I hardly knew anything about Advent. Some Christians, depending on their denominational backgrounds, grow up with more awareness of the liturgical seasons. While this was not something that I grew up with, in the past couple of years I have come to apprectiate, first, Lent, and now Advent.

    My mom and I have been reading a collection of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings called God Is In the Manger. Put together specifically for Advent, and in the style of a devotional, the title of the first reading describes Advent well: "The Advent Season Is a Season of Waiting." Beginning the fourth Sunday before Christmas, it ends on Christmas day, and as Christmas celebrates Jesus' birth, Advent acknowledges the time when humanity waited for a Savior. One thing I became very interested by, something those who have celebrated Advent every year may know very well, is that Advent is also about waiting for the second coming of Christ. As Bonhoeffer wrote in that first reading mentioned before, "The Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth."

    As I thought more about this double waiting of Advent,I thought about how we're in a similar position as the Jewish people were when they were waiting for a Messiah. They weren't quite sure what to expect, but the prophets gave them clues. If you're familiar with Handel's Messiah, you might know the song, "For unto us a son is born," its lyrics a direct quotation of one of those clues, Isaiah 9:3:

For unto us a Child is born

Unto us a Son is given

And the government

Shall be upon His shoulder

And his name shall be called

Wonderful

Counselor

The Mighty God

The Everlasting Father

The Prince of Peace.

    I'm sure the Jewish people didn't think the establishment of the Messiah's kingdom would be such a process. We know that many expected a political leader, someone who would free the Jewish people from Roman rule. Many expected someone who looked more like what they thought a king should look like. Instead He came in great humility, born in a manger to poor parents; the King who didn't care about overthrowing the flesh and blood kingdoms of this earth, who had a greater purpose in mind. As we wait for Jesus' second coming, we also have clues, but I wonder if we will be just as taken off guard as we were when he came the first time.

    I don't know if this happens to every Christian, but I'm sure I'm not alone in being struck at times by the absurdity of what I believe. A while ago, for a couple of days, I was thinking about how, as a Christian, I'm supposed to believe in the second coming of Christ. During this period, though, I was more aware of how this would seem to someone outside of my perspective, and from those outsider pair of eyes, it looked crazy. Somehow the mysteries of old, namely, the resurrection, seemed more acceptable because the New Testament is full of people who testified to, made sense of and believed in the resurrection. I know that this doesn't really make sense. If I can believe in one, I should be able to believe in the other. The resurrection of the Son of God is itself a radical belief (I'm aware that to someone who doesn't share my Christian beliefs, it may all sound absurd). Yet it seems that while it's somewhat acceptable in our culture to say you believe that Jesus died for your sins, say that he's coming back and you'll be looked at like you're Harold Camping (and if your don't remember or know who that is, a quick Google search can fix that).

    With all this in mind, I take comfort in Advent. I like to think that there were times when the Jewish people felt a little crazy as they continued to wait for a Messiah to come. Some, very admirably, continued to hope for events to pass that they would never see happen in their lifetime. The Jewish people waited hundreds of years for God to deliever them from Egypt. Finally Moses came. They waited even longer for the arrival of a Messiah. Finally Jesus was born.

    To go back once again to that reading from God Is In the Manger, says Bonhoeffer, "It's still not Christmas, but it's also not the great last Advent, the last coming of Christ. Through all the Advents of our life that we celebrate runs the longing for the last Advent, when the word will be: "See, I am making all things new" (Rev. 21:5). We wait for Jesus to come back and make all things new. Finally, He will come.

Sitting in the Dark

(I wrote this on September 12, 2013. Because this is a reflection of how I felt as I was writing, I felt odd editing it, because even a short amount a time produces different feelings, however subtle, than what's here. I wanted to keep the integrity of what I wrote, so the changes have been minor. I also changed the title.)

 

     Right now I'm in the middle of troubling times in my life. I have tried to keep my eyes open to what God might be doing to reverse them and to what he has wanted me to learn from this downward trajectory. I have tried to find patterns in how it will all work out, why it is happening, and what issues God is trying to have me work through. In short, I have tried to find meaning in my problems. I have hoped that there is some purpose in them. But the more they go on, the harder it is for me to find meaning.

     Not all the meaning is gone. There have been several moments during this time where God has revealed, or made clearer truths that I've needed to face about myself. I see where he has been rooting out the ugly in me, and where he has been freeing me from deception in how I see him, and how I see myself. There have been more occasions during this time where my family has experienced the presence of God, in one way or another, than we have had in a long time. 

     But now as the troubles continue, and as it has become harder to live out the truths that have been revealed to me, it's become very easy for me to feel discouraged and even, let down by God. I thought that the inner changes would correspond to outward changes. I thought I saw how God was moving in my life. I thought, to be blunt, that my faith would pay off. I thought that all this growth would be rewarded with my deliverance from my problems, but it hasn't. They keep going, and I don't  see, borrowing a great surprise, anything changing soon. 

     Instead I feel as if I was just trying to read the tea leaves. Rather than God ordained revelation, I feel like I possibly saw signs that weren't there, and created narratives for my life that didn't exist. As my problems have extended past my own predicted due dates, I feel like I was wrong, and I am tempted to say that there was no meaning in them at all, because that's how it feels. I feel like life has just happened to me, and there is no greater purpose in it. 

     But I know better than that. It's not as if my family hasn't ever sensed God's being with us during this period. And even more, I must hang on to the promise that everything works out for good for those who love God (although my mind is tempted to wonder if there's a theological or exegetical loophole to that). I must hang on to the belief that God is sovereign. 

     One of the biggest strongholds in my life is the temptation to doubt God's goodness and his love for me. Putting it straightforward like that sounds odd, because I wouldn't deny it in a straightforward manner. But I have realized (especially during this period) that the way I think about God and interact with him implies such beliefs. So right now, when I have a hard time seeing any meaning in my situation, I feel like God's just letting things happen to me. I don't feel like he has a hold of my life. I feel like he's not involved. I have a hard time trusting him. Part of me doubts that he has my best interest at heart. 

     I have to believe that even when things don't make sense, he does, in fact, have my best interest at heart. Maybe my attempts to find meaning are a way of trying to keep control over my life. Maybe what I feel God to be doing is just taking longer than I thought. 

     The platitudes go off in my head: "let go and let God," "God's timing is not our timing." That's all well and good, but sitting in the middle of all this, it is harder than I thought to live out what I said I believed about God. I thought I had passed the test. I thought I had passed and I was about to come out of this mess. That's how I saw it. Instead, I am being put to an even greater test, one where I can't read the tea leaves and see the resolution. I sit in the dark, and wait on God.