The Advent of Advent

The whispers of Christmas are growing into a chorus that you can’t ignore. It’s been coming for a while, as people put up Christmas trees in hopeful defiance against the wearisome worry that 2020 has brought with it. Perhaps, we think, these lights twinkling on the tree will drive away the darkness that has crept its way into our spirits this year as we’ve fumbled our way through skies filled with smoke and air thick with worry and news filled with doom. We’re waiting for the advent of advent. We’re clinging to the belief that Christmas means something in the midst of all this, and it’s like a song that builds slowly to the chorus. Slow, steady counts that begin to build momentum until it bursts into a chorus that causes your heart to swell and your voice to soar.

I suppose the question I’m asking myself is, ‘how can I look forward to singing a chorus when covid prevents us from singing at all in so many ways?’ Or, I guess… will the advent of Advent change anything?

In one sense, no. We’re still in the midst of a global pandemic and whilst we haven’t yet hit the hardest part of bushfire season, it’s in the back of many of our minds that someday soon in these next months our skies may turn red from the flames once more. No date, whether December 1st, 25th or even January 1st 2021, can remove us from the world or take the ache away from it.

In one sense, yes. Advent does, and has, changed both us and the world. I’ve always loved the lyric ‘a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices’ and this year it seems to have popped up in every second church’s advertising for Christmas. I don’t blame them, honestly. It’s a good one.

Do you remember Anna from Luke’s account of Jesus’ life? It’s early in the account, in chapter two, and we don’t get to know much about her but what we do know is that she’s waiting. She had been married for seven years, but then her husband died, and when we meet her it had been 84 years since then. She had dedicated her life to serving God — fasting and praying at the temple day in and day out. Can you imagine it? A frail lady who many would write off, and yet… there comes a day when she sees Jesus in all his own frailty, a mere baby in his mother’s arms, and upon seeing him she begins to praise God and speak about the redemption of Israel to those who, like her, have been waiting… waiting… for something to change.

I can imagine her smile.

I can imagine the way she would gaze tenderly at the baby who she would one day call Saviour and King.

I can imagine that in that one moment she felt that her days spent in the temple were all a slow build to this chorus that would change her, and change the world.

Oh, Anna. To see Him through your eyes would be such a blessing.

Perhaps you’ve felt like this year has been like Anna’s 84 years. You’ve shown up when you can and where you can and you’ve been waiting to see what God would do. You’ve asked him to heal and you’ve asked him to save and you’ve asked him to show himself, to be here among us and with us and to be for us. Perhaps you’ve stopped asking because it felt like you were writing letters to Santa that never get answered, and if they did, it feels like some guy in a fake beard wrote them.

Advent is God’s announcement that change has come, and that change will come. Advent is the season in which the church leans into longing for Jesus to arrive — where we gaze at promises made long ago and look to the manger that held our saviour and stand in awe of what we know He will do because He has done it.

It is God’s promise realised. For Anna, she knew that in Jesus, God was bringing redemption. For us, we can join with Anna in gazing in adoration at Him. But we can also look from our own vantage point, knowing that because God has kept this promise He will keep the rest — that one day, all our tears (even the rivers of 2020 tears) will be wiped away by the Father’s tender hand and our homes will never be at risk of flame and we will never need to socially distance again. We will be able to sing. Oh friends, we will sing.

I suppose, all this is to say that the advent of advent does not change Covid and it does not remove the threat of fire, but it remains cause to sing — because the Promise Maker is the Promise Keeper, and He has come, and He will come.

He will.