Advent is my favorite season of the church year. Advent is a time of year where I try hardest to slow down and look and listen. It is also a time of year where there seems to be so many things going on that slowing down is close to impossible and when the season closes out I find the “If only…” thoughts rolling through my head.
As I looked through the various readings in this week’s lectionary I was struck by the prophet Isaiah’s cry for the heavens to be torn open and for God to be revealed. I was especially intrigued by this bit: “When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” (Isa 64:4)
There is so much more going on in this text, but I couldn’t help but stop and think about how many times I wait for God do again, in a startling way, what God has done before. Most of us are looking for God to do something remarkable in our lives, in our communities, in our churches, in our world. We’re looking for God, waiting for God, but we’re waiting for the pattern that shows us that God is working. Our expectation of awesome deeds isn’t an expectation of surprise, but an expectation of routine, of tradition (or traditions).
A little over 16 years ago, my family and I drove across country to visit with extended family for Christmas and New Years. I was still in my “spiritual but not religious” frame of mind, but we went to Christmas Eve services with my family because that’s what you do when you visit family. One of the most vivid memories I have comes from this visit. It was the end of the service and the lights were off and the candles were lit and the congregation was singing “Silent Night.” My Dad was holding my six-month old daughter up in front of him and singing to her and my vision clouded and somewhere deep inside of me the constricting bands around my heart broke to let God in.
Maybe this is why Advent is so precious to me.
But this is also why I slow down and look for God because at a time in my life when I wasn’t looking, God snuck in. I am a creature of habit, I love my routines and my patterns, and if I’m not careful I will only look for God to sneak in during sentimental moments.
On the other side of the prophet Isaiah is the Mark’s Gospel which has Jesus telling his listeners to keep awake because you do not know when the Master will return. (Mark 13:35-37) Readers and scholars and pastors all talk about this being a Second Coming text—and it is—but I can’t help but take it paralleled with Isaiah and hear that refrain of “don’t look for God to keep doing the same old thing; don’t think you know how or when God will arrive.” Have a willingness to be surprised by God’s arrival.
I was born in the early 70s and one of the toys I remember (or found so frightening that I can’t forget) was the old school Jack-in-the-Box. You turned the handle while a little music box played “Pop Goes the Weasel” and at the end the lid popped open and a spring loaded clown jumped out. It was frightening, exhilarating, fun and then you got old enough to see the pattern and it quickly lost any appeal.
Advent is too precious to me to get locked in to the same old patterns of looking for God to erupt into our world. I should be expecting a surprise. I should be looking for awesome deeds I don’t expect.
Maybe you’ll join me on the journey.
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