The Advent Pilgrimage - 1st Week

Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36

Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

Advent:

 “Arrival, appearance, emergence, materialization, occurrence, dawn, birth, rise, development, approach, coming.” 

Advent originates from the Latin ‘adventus (arrival) and ‘advenire’ (to come).

I especially love the words “emergence, dawn, birth and rise”. They are words filled with such an immense promise of something startlingly new, something never seen before, something that will rock people off their staid and stale foundations as happened when Jesus first came to earth. They are words of high pilgrimage. They are words that have serious consequences.

It’s not all that hard to use those words in the context of Jesus and his amazing birth, his incredible life, his heart wrenching death and universally explosive resurrection. But would you ever use any of those words in the context of your everyday spiritual life? Emergence? Dawn? Birth? Rising up? Advent challenges you to not only acknowledge that Jesus came for the world and will come again for the world, but also to remember he came for you, comes for you and will come again for you – and that’s just in the next two minutes. Jesus never stops coming. Ever. His whole nature and his eternal desire is to come to us, but…

We stop anticipating. We get caught up in our daily struggles and forget that we’re on a pilgrimage. We forget that the spiritual pilgrimage doesn’t march forward in the way the natural life does; it goes deeper and higher. And we forget to expect the one who comes. We stop watching for him so we rarely encounter him face-to-face.

We stop waiting in anticipation because we feel we have been disappointed so often. We have so many preconceived ideas of what it will look like when he comes and what should occur in the moment of his coming that we become spiritually disheartened when our expectations and desires are not met. We pray for something and the answer doesn’t seem to come. We try to place ourselves in his presence but it feels like a failed experiment. Then we start to feel guilty because we think we’re not good enough or that we don’t spend enough time in concentrated prayer and maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem to come. Days, weeks and months go by and prayer feels dry and unproductive. It’s as if we’re talking to ourselves. Pilgrimage is the last word we’d use to describe our spiritual life.

I’ll bet every one of you could easily identify something you are waiting for. Perhaps you’re waiting for healing, healing for a relationship or a loved one who’s struggling. Perhaps you’re desperate for a physical healing. Maybe you’re waiting for change: a change in your life circumstances or a change in your ability to deal with certain people and situations. You may be waiting for a spiritual breakthrough – something that will suddenly reveal to you all you feel you’ve been missing in the spiritual life. You could be waiting for guidance and direction for a tough decision. We are all waiting for something and waiting is very difficult. What we don’t often realize is that waiting is a vital, beautiful and deeply spiritual activity. Waiting is prayer. Waiting is pilgrimage.

The reason we don’t recognize waiting as a way of going deeper in the spiritual life is because we are too influenced by the world’s perception of value. There is no doubt that ‘doing, accomplishing and moving forward’ are essential to surviving in the world but when ‘doing and accomplishing and moving forward’ are applied to our spiritual life, we are apt to get the horse before the cart. It becomes very difficult for us to remember that God is in control and that God is the beginning and the end; he is the creator and we are the created. When we realize that we have no control over God and his plans for our lives and that our goodness or lack of goodness is not what motivates God to come to us and that he comes simply because he loves us too much not to, all that’s left to do is wait. Waiting is pilgrimage. It means letting go and engaging fully in life without knowing what the next moment is going to hold. It means understanding that we cannot wrangle, manipulate and control things in order that something we think is good and right will happen. It means being created beings in front of the one and only Creator. It means being poor and spiritual poverty is something that is terribly difficult to comprehend in a world that pushes us to do, accomplish, attain, possess, move forward and control. Simply waiting for the coming of the Lord is the action of one who is poor in spirit. But… they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength and mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

In scripture, there are four Hebrew words that translate as “wait”: qavah, yachal, damam and chakah. The translations of these words are: to bind together (like strands of a rope), look patiently, tarry or wait, hope, expect, look eagerly, trust, wait expectantly, to be dumb, grow silent, be still, long for.

Waiting is not just putting in time twiddling your thumbs. Waiting in the spiritual life is a critical part of prayer and growth. It is staying in the moment and completely letting go of the need to be in control. If you resist entering into the pilgrimage of waiting, you may have a slightly mistaken idea of what the spiritual life is all about.  Even God – especially God – waits.

“For this cause the Lord will be waiting, so that he may be kind to you; and he will be lifted up, so that he may have mercy on you; for the Lord is a God of righteousness: there is a blessing on all who wait for him.” (Isaiah 30:18)

Not only is there is a blessing on all who wait for God but he, too, is engaged in waiting – longing for us, longing to be kind to us, rising up so that he can have mercy on us. Out of his silence he emerges or rises like the dawn out of darkness – for us. Always for us.

There is mystery and freedom in waiting, in being entwined with the Lord in longing, hope and trust and expecting him in eager stillness or still eagerness. We are encouraged so many times in scripture to wait - there must be something extremely powerful in this holy activity. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14) Wait for him to come. Watch for him. To do otherwise is utter futility.

God is always coming, and we, like Adam, hear his footsteps. God is always coming because God is life, and life has the unbridled force of creation...God comes because God is light, and light may not remain hidden. God comes because God is love, and love needs to give itself. God has always been coming; God is always coming. God comes like the sun in the morning — when it is time. (The God Who Comes, Carlo Caretto, 1974)

Be still. Advent is the pilgrimage of waiting. Make quiet your anxious heart. Can you hear it? Someone is coming…