Faith Works 11-29-24

Faith Works 11-29-24
Jeff Gill

When we say we can't wait, we mean it
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In the Christian liturgical calendar, Advent is the period of prayerful preparation leading up to Christmas Day.

Some years, it backs into November (in the Orthodox Church, it is longer and always does), usually observed with four Sundays of themed worship before Christmas Day itself, all leading up to that joyful day.

Advent is traditionally seen as a commemoration of the Incarnation, of God entering into this world in the person of Jesus, first as a tiny, helpless baby, but also as a penitential season preparing us for Christ's return, sometimes called the Second Advent of Jesus. In either case, it is a season of waiting.

Which we're terrible at.

Wait? Have you heard of one-click ordering? Wait? Do you know what my office sounds like when I'm getting on a video conference with people from multiple time zones, many of whom I've never met and may never meet, but will soon see and converse with, but first the window pops up: Updates are now downloading. Aiiiieeee! You mean I will have to WAIT a minute or two to do something that not all that long ago required a long car or train trip, perhaps a plane flight, a taxi to a conference center, checking in, then walking up to a meeting room? Instead of all that, I can do it NOW, unless I first have updates to download . . .

Waiting is not a spiritual practice much cultivated in the world we live in. Imagine the horror of going to the cereal aisle and seeing forty-eleven brands of breakfast snap-crackle-and-pop but not finding our preferred sugary discs? Someone will hear about this, now!

Advent says: or we could learn how to wait. To, if you will excuse the profanity against our modern era's commercial divinities, learn how to defer gratification. Christmas will come soon enough, on the 25th, but first, we could just try to enter into the waiting as a good place to be, and not just a desert of unfulfilled wants we're enduring, like the drive across Kansas (my apologies to the fine folk of that remarkably level state).

If we were to find the journey part of the joy of the destination, then waiting would not be something to be endured, but a part of the plan we embrace. One of the worship practice elements some churches observe in Advent I find both charming, and instructive: to start the first Sunday of Advent with an empty manger scene. Then to add over the next days and weeks the cow, the donkey, the sheep, shepherds of course, Mary and Joseph . . . Jesus, who will arrive in due time.

You can even spice up the period after Advent, between Christmas and Epiphany, with a Biblically appropriate slow roll of the Magi and their camels making their way in post-Christmas, culminating January 6th.

We all need to wait better. I think that's spiritual counsel few would dispute. Advent is both a time, and a way, for us to work on that gift: to wait with God for fulfillment.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not that great at waiting patiently himself. Tell him how you've learned to wait well at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.