Readings:
Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-2(NRSV)
I don’t like things for which there is no definitive answer. I think it is the scientist in me. I know that in my life as a pharmacist if I add chemical A to chemical B the laws of nature make it all but certain that I will get a particular reaction that will produce chemical C. It is pretty much a given. I like that. It makes it so much easier to predict what will happen in life.
Outside of the laboratory not much in life happens according to a set plan or timeline no matter how much I want or try to will it to. Therefore, Advent has never been a season of the church year that I am very good at traveling through. I read the texts of the season on watching and waiting for the unexpected and I want to know the plan. I want things set in motion. Here. Now. Not one day in the future that “will come like a thief in the night” at some time I won’t be expecting.
I look around this world and I see our need for the coming Lord right now. I see hunger, wars, hate, injustice, prejudice, disease, and much more pain than it seems we can all bear. We need a savior. Here and now. I want to cry, “Come, Lord Jesus! And hurry it up!”
Advent reminds me that God’s time is not my time and that God’s ways are not my ways. In the midst of this busy world that has me constantly rushing forward to get to the finish line, that is always pulling me in many different directions, and that is constantly shouting competing messages at me, Advent reminds me to stop, look, and listen for what God is up to. It reminds me that when I am focused on my own agenda I can’t always see, hear, or feel what God is up to, but that God is there at work just under my radar. Advent calls me to slow myself down enough to let go of my own timeline and expectations so I can look, listen, and see the wonder that is the coming Lord. Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!
Help Me Listen
O Holy One,
I hear and say so many words,
yet yours is the word I need.
Speak now,
and help me listen;
and, if what I hear is silence,
let it quiet me,
let it disturb me,
let it touch my need,
let it break my pride,
let it shrink my certainties,
let it enlarge my wonder.
(from Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle by Ted Loder)
-Karen Safstrom
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