Advent, like all seasons in the church calendar, is an invitation to a journey. We begin our Christian year in waiting. We do not begin with our own frenetic effort or energy . . . Instead, we begin in a place of longing and stillness: “O come, O come, Emmanuel.”
Of all the liturgical seasons, Advent is the most contemplative. Advent is calm and meditative, and it opens us to the infinite scope of life and mortality. It is an invitation to live from a different rhythm than the speed and hustle of secular culture.
What is Advent all about? Built around the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day, Advent provides us with time for preparation. We seek to prepare for the coming of Jesus—who has come in the past, who continually comes in the present, and who will come in the future. During Advent, we pray with our heart and mind, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” Along with this prayer of deep longing and yearning, we wait and watch, we remember and repent, we believe and behold. Above all, we seek to stay awake and become aware. Jesus often enters our lives in quiet, hidden, and unexpected ways.
Advent is about learning to wait. It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow, only that whatever it is, it is of the essence of our spiritual growth and formation in Christ. Every piece of it, some hard, some uplifting, is a sign of the work of God alive in us. We are becoming as we go. We learn in Advent to stay in the present, knowing that only the present well lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life.
How can we begin to journey into deeper friendship with God during Advent?
Silence is the key. In silence, everything becomes real.
Unless we are silently attentive, we might miss what we are waiting for! This is especially true when we wait for God, who has an unsettling tendency to come in humble, unobtrusive and unexpected ways. ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ God comes in the silence; on the gentle breeze; and, in the flesh, even as a vulnerable little baby in a manger. That is truly a love worth waiting for, especially in silence.
So I wonder what we would discover if, for the Season of Advent, we took five minutes daily or maybe ten, or twenty, to just sit in silence and stillness, waiting and watching. What would the Coming One show us and say to us?
During the four weeks of Advent our role is nothing more than to receive the magnitude of God’s grace, God’s loving invitation, and give our yes in response. It’s to awaken.
Here is Psalm 63.5, a verse that expresses the journey of Advent:
“For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.”
There you have it, in just one verse: waiting, hoping . . . and silence.
Blessed Advent! Come Lord Jesus, Come.
With you on The Journey and The Way,
Rob+
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