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 Throughout scripture we see how God imagines our earth as a place
where life flourishes: a place of justice for all peoples and a
place of harmony for creation.
In God’s hope for the world,
- the blind are given sight, the deaf are able to hear, and the
captives are set free.
- Strangers and immigrants are welcomed without concern for anything
but their wellbeing.
- The child who identifies as LGBTQ does not fear going to school
or—even—church.
- All races, genders, creeds, and ethnicities are celebrated for the
diversity they add to our community.
Ultimately, God longs for the day when the beloved community will be
actualized and no obstacles will stand in the way of enjoying
authentic communion with one another.
Sadly, we have neither lived fully into God’s dream nor to the reign
of God, sometimes called the kingdom of God; each has not been
experienced His reign in its fullness.
 Some of us hear the prophet Isaiah speaking of the day when lion
will lay down with the lamb, to which some will say that is nothing
but a pipe dream. Others of us wonder if anyone has really listened
to John the Baptist’s wilderness invitation to repent of our missing
the mark, and to believe we are capable of doing our part to usher
forth the reign of God.
Many of us become so jaded and frustrated during this time of the
year—perhaps with the church and all the hypocrisy that comes with
the institution, or the commercialism and consumerism that bombards
us in every aspect of our life, telling us we need this or that and
how our lives won’t be complete without a certain product. Am I
speaking about you?
In so many ways, this year is not unlike previous years. Perhaps the
only difference is that the Cubs won the World Series or we did most
our shopping from home. Either way, since Labor Day, the march
towards Christmas has been underway and it has brought with it all
sorts of baggage.
But before we get too weighed down with keeping “the real reason for
the season” and sprinting from this party to the next, we need a
reminder about what season we are in now: Advent.
Advent is about anticipating the birth of Christ. It’s about
longing, desire, and that which is yet to come… that which isn’t
here yet.
And so we wait. We wait expectantly. Together. With an ache. Because
all is not right. Something is missing.
Why is Advent so important? Because cynicism is the new religion of
our world. This new religion teaches that nothing—not even you—is as
good as it seems. Whatever you have, it will let you down. Whoever
you surround yourself with, he or she will betray you. That
institution? That church? That politician? That person you admire?
This new religion screams at us, “They’ll all let you down! Whatever
you do, don’t get your hopes up. Whatever you think it is or
whatever it appears to be, it will burn you, just give it time.
This is why I love the build up to Christmas. You see, Advent
confronts this modern ideology. It challenges the corrosion of the
heart with the insistence that God has not abandoned the world.
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Advent reminds us that hope is real and something—someone—is coming.
Advent charges into the temple of cynicism with a whip of hope,
overturning the tables of despair, driving out the clergy of that
jaded cult, and announcing there’s a new day and it’s not like the
one that came before it.
Instead of screaming at us, Advent whispers in the dark, “The not
yet will be worth it.”
And so, each December, though Advent began on the last Sunday of
November this year, we enter into a season of waiting, expecting,
and longing.
While we wait, the Spirit meets us in the ache.
We ask God to enter into the deepest places of cynicism, bitterness,
and hardness—those places where we have stopped believing that
tomorrow will be better than today.
We open up. We soften up. We turn our hearts in the direction of
that day. That day when the baby cries it’s first cry, and we —
surrounded by shepherds, and angels, and everybody in between —
celebrate that sound in time that brings our spirits what we’ve been
longing for… belonging and worth.
Advent is the season we prepare for the arrival of the Christ Child;
it’s this assurance and a promise of God’s goodness coming, not only
once, but also again; in each moment and everywhere, here and now.
We prepare for the incarnation of God—which declared, is
proclaiming, and will always point to God’s dream for the world:
Love for all, hatred of none, and a manifestation of love for God;
peace and satisfaction.
I love what a Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, once asked, “What
good is it that Christ was born 2,000 years ago if he is not born
now in your heart?”
And so I ask you: How will you participate in the coming of God’s
dream—the coming of Christ—this year?
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