The Beauty of Advent — Tpaul Homdrom

The days grow shorter, and darker, and colder.

Winter is here!

(Technically not yet, I know. But we all know December means winter.)

I do so love the winter season. Cold weather gets me excited, every snowfall is as much a treasure as it was when I was a little kid, and of course with winter, and December…

Comes Christmas!

But not yet.

Advent is an easy thing to gloss over. It’s a season that’s easy to know about, but when so much time, energy, and attention is taken up preparing for “the big day,” with buying presents, hiding presents, wrapping presents, hanging decorations, shopping for more food than you usually do, baking all sorts of lovely cookies, figuring out where you’re going to be and who else is going to be there and what you need to expect and what you need to bring… it’s easy to have all the focus be on Christmas. And Christmas is wonderful! But Advent comes before it.

And Advent is about waiting.

Waiting is a difficult thing in the twenty-first century. When so many things are available so fast, when we can travel so quickly, when the world is smaller than ever and any form of entertainment, or shopping, or communication is right at our fingertips, instant and on-command, the idea of waiting can seem… absurd. Annoying. Frustrating. A needless obstacle to getting to the actual living life that we want to do.

But there is a beauty in waiting. And Advent crystallizes that more clearly than any other time of year.

Waiting can easily conjure up images of doing nothing. Standing in line. Standing on a train platform. Sitting in an airport. Constantly refreshing your email, because that response you’re expecting still hasn’t come. It’s just… waiting. Something’s going to happen, but it hasn’t yet.

But waiting doesn’t have to just be doing nothing. Look at the example of Advent! What are people doing across these four weeks of anticipation? Sitting in front of the Christmas tree, twiddling our thumbs, watching the clocks tick down to Christmas Day? No way! People are out in the world, or working hard at home, preparing for Christmas.

There’s setting up and decorating the tree. There’s hanging lights, and other decorations. Putting out Nativity scenes. Hanging Advent calendars and ticking off the boxes each day, with a new message or present or delight in store. Asking loved ones what they’d like as a gift, going out and exploring options, purchasing gifts, or making gifts, and carefully (or not-so-carefully — we can’t all be perfect) wrapping them.

Think about the gifts, the presents. What even is the act of buying a gift for someone? Unless you’re the ultimate procrastinator (you’re not alone — I’ve bought a last-minute present on Christmas Day before), you’re buying a present… and then not giving it to the intended recipient. Not yet.

You’re waiting.

And you probably don’t even wrap it on the day you buy it, or the day whatever you ordered arrives in the mail. So there are stages to waiting. You wait to find the gift, or for it to arrive in the mail. You wait to wrap it. Then you wait to actually get to give it, and see it opened, and (hopefully) see the delight on the recipient’s face.

And yet… isn’t the waiting exciting?

I know I’m not the only one who just gets psyched up during this season, waiting for Christmas. Christmas isn’t even here, what are you excited about? Is waiting really that fun? Yeah, it is!

Because that’s where we find the truth that Advent reveals — waiting isn’t just waiting.

Waiting is preparation. And preparing for an event is exciting… but also necessary. If you want the event to be the best that it can be, you can’t just throw things together on the day! We’ve all put together birthday parties, or planned out Halloween costumes, or put together an itinerary and a packing checklist for a big trip to some far-off place. We’ve all prepared for something that wasn’t yet to be, in order for it to be the best it could be.

Waiting isn’t just waiting.

The putting up and decorating the tree, the rehearsals by choirs and carolers and musicians and orchestras, the buying and hiding and wrapping of gifts, the putting up of lights and decorations inside and outside… all of this is waiting. And it’s active! Because we know that we’ll regret it if we put everything off until the day before or day of, but more than regret…

We know that the day will be its best because we prepared for it. We know that our joy will be exponentially increased because we prepared.

The great, wonderful moment we’re all waiting for won’t be great and wonderful if we aren’t active in our waiting.

Waiting is preparation.

Advent shows us that waiting, that preparation, is full of excitement and anticipation. But Advent also shows us that waiting isn’t all delight and excitement.

Waiting is longing. It’s an ache for something that is yet to be, but has not yet come. It’s a desire that has yet to be satisfied. It’s a hope that has yet to be fulfilled. It’s a sickness that you’re waiting to get better, hoping will get better. It’s finishing a job interview, waiting for them to call you back with good news, after too many rejections before this one. It’s a hungry child whose parents can’t buy any food today, but promise they will tomorrow — and hope that they can actually fulfill that promise. It’s calling 911 in a crisis and then desperately hanging on until help arrives, praying it reaches you in time. It’s a patient in critical condition who’s stuck in a queue, with nurses doing all they can to keep them hanging on until the procedure they need can be performed. It’s a family hunkering down in the basement, waiting for the storm to pass — or the war to pass.

Advent reflects the world in the lead-up to the birth of Jesus, a world in need, in longing, in heartache, in hardship.

But Jesus was born. It happened! The promised day arrived!

And yet… still we wait. Still the world grows darker. Still the longing remains. Still children go hungry, still people get sick, still crime and disasters and war break in on peaceful lives. Because Jesus came, and ministered to His people, and died on the cross, and rose again, and ascended into Heaven, and gave us salvation from sin and death, but…

Still we wait. He came, and He will come again. But we live in the interim. Still we wait for our promise to be fulfilled. Still we watch the days grow darker, and colder.

Christmas came, the Savior was born, praise be to God!

But… He left. Left us with a promise, with a hope, with a great and beautiful day that we…

Wait for.

He will come again. But He hasn’t yet. So Advent isn’t just about that day two thousand years ago — it’s about the here and now. About us, right here in the world today, waiting. Longing. Hoping. Advent is a reminder. And also a mirror, to see where we stand now.

It’s no mistake that Advent comes during the darkest season of the year. The days are so short, the sun rises so late, sets so early. It’s cold, bitter cold, and even though some of us love the cold weather (hello!) it still means we can’t be outside as much as we may like. It still means going outside takes more preparation than other times of the year. And it means that those who are outside, who are forced to be outside, who have no inside to retreat to, are facing their hardest days of the year.

But what do we do during Advent, in this darkest season of the year?

We light up the world.

Driving at night during Advent, and even for a few more precious days after Christmas, takes me past so many beautiful lighted displays. Houses that would once just have faint lights to be glimpsed through windows, lights removed from the outside, specific to those who live there, now have lights bursting outside, sharing light with their neighbors, and with all who drive past. Christmas trees spied through windows at night or decorated outside in public places are these gorgeous constellations brought to earth, displays of color and beauty that cast aside the dark that blankets the world.

Waiting isn’t just waiting. When the dark creeps in, when the cold creeps in, we light up the world, and share that light with the world. Because the world isn’t all dark and perilous, even when some days, some places, some events can be so all-consuming, can seem so devouring, can make it seem like there is no light to be found.

The light is there to be found, even on the darkest days.

Christmas is the exciting day we’re leading up to, marching towards, waiting for. Christmas is that bright, brilliant star hanging over the birth of a Savior.

But Advent is the light on the ordinary days. Advent is the light we can find every day. Advent is the light of hope we can carry in our hearts on the ordinary days, the regular days, the days of waiting, of longing, the days of “Not yet,” the days we wish we didn’t have to bear. Advent is the light in a hand reaching out to one in need, in a meal shared with those who hunger, in a gift given to one who has nothing. Advent is a reminder of the hope of the past, a reflection on the hope of the present, a beacon towards the hope to come.

In the waiting, in the longing, in the hoping…

Light a candle. And let it shine.