Are we home?
Raise your hand if you’re tired of waiting this year.
Last spring, right before Covid, I had the brilliant plan to get our roof scrubbed clean before washing windows. I wanted to let the summertime sunshine come pouring in.
Simple, right?
Instead, we discovered our shingles had failed prematurely and the skylight seals were broken. We had to file a claim, wrangle with the shingle manufacturer, and buy a whole new roof. Then during the roof replacement, we discovered rotted facia boards in need of replacement and fresh paint. It’s a long story, but due to inaccurate measurements, miscommunication, and a lost work order, almost 9 mos later, we are still waiting on the skylight installation. They are scheduled to arrive this week.
Covid has been a season of waiting on top of waiting on top of waiting. Consider what else we are waiting for. We are waiting to: travel, be together, to return to in-person school or work or normal life, whatever that is these days. We are waiting for a Covid vaccine. We are in a long season of waiting.
And as Advent is also a season of waiting, I’ve been thinking about why waiting is so hard.
Henri Nouwen cuts to the chase about waiting,
“The more afraid we are, the harder waiting becomes.”
We have been afraid a long time. As far back as Eden, Adam and Eve were afraid God was holding out on them. That is why they (we) grabbed for the one forbidden fruit and hid when God came looking for them. We are scaredy-cats and God knows it.
Fear and waiting are connected. That is why the angels are always telling us, “Do not be afraid.” I believe it is Fleming Rutledge who says, Advent is not for sissies. She is right.
Zechariah, Mary, and Joseph are all people praying and going about their faithful work when God arrives with an answer. We may not be privy to the words of their prayers, but God is addressing their longings. Notice three things in the gospels about their prayers and God’s answer: they are specific to named people, they are heard, and they are answered.
Do you ever consider that God knows and calls you by name, maybe even a beloved nickname?
In Scripture, we must remember we have arrived in the middle of a bigger story to an ongoing conversation between God and the whole universe. Something is already in the works.
Nouwen continues,
“People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more.”
When I read Nouwen’s words, even when I can’t quite put my finger on it, I sense mystery and hope. But when I keep reading, savoring his words, I notice something else. What God has already begun FOR us, can now grow IN us.
This was God’s invitation to Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph. He was continuing his promise of saving God’s people to be with him again like in Eden when humans walked and talked with God in the cool of the day. That is somethng worth coming home to.
With Christ’s arrival as Jesus, God’s wild love was coming as near as blood and bone and burping. The circumstances of Jesus’ birth might not seem very graceful, but truly full of grace.
Let me say that again,
“With Christ’s arrival as Jesus, God’s wild love was coming as near as blood and bone and burping. The circumstances of Jesus’ birth might not seem very graceful, but truly full of grace.” Terri Conlin
God was freeing us from our death sentence, being separated from him, and making a way back into his presence, and not only through a temple far away on a hilltop. God was offering his holy sanctuary to our bodies. Home.
The question is, what will we say to God’s invitation of moving in?
Nouwen captures what good waiting entails,
“Our waiting is always shaped by alertness to the word. It is waiting in the knowledge that someone wants to address us. The question is, are we home? Are we at our address, ready to respond to the doorbell? We need to wait together to keep each other at home spiritually, so that when the word comes it can become flesh in us.”
Are we home? might seem a funny question for the year 2020 when all we did was stay home. But when we consider how restless we are, we know there is work to do, most of it surrender.
There might be a million ways to do so, but here are just three ways we can wait together well:
Get specific about what you’re waiting for. Make a list and include several categories: spiritual, political, relational, creative, social, physical, emotional, vocational.
Talk and listen to God about it. Try talking 20% and listening 80% and see what God has to say. Listen for a 90-day period and keep notes in your journal of what lingers, stirs, or repeats in you.
Share the waiting. Ask someone you love what they are waiting on, what they do while they wait, how they connect with God as they wait? Tell someone your waiting prayer.
It seems we need only say with Mary, “fiat mihi” which is yes and amen and come on in!
But then our faith adventure only begins in earnest when we realize the way doesn’t open all at once. Zechariah’s song at the birth of baby John, reminds us,
“Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God’s sunrise will break in upon us, Shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death. Then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.”
One foot at a time down the path of peace; that is our Advent adventure even when our heart or our feet get restless.
I wrote a prayer for my restless heart. Maybe you need it too during Advent or Covid or this time of both.
