God is coming!
All the element we swim in, this existence, Echoes ahead the advent.
God is coming! Can’t you feel it?
{Walter Wangerin, Jr}
Can you feel it? Can you?
Advent, waiting for redemption, is an exercise in hope. Hope can be a tricky thing though. Hope has a number of enemies. Here’s the enemy I’ve been most aware of lately:
cynicism. Cynicism smirks when others smile. Cynicism holds back when others open up. Cynicism pulls you into darkness whenever your spirit craves the light.
Cynicism and Hope are mortal enemies. So, then, this makes cynicism and advent mortal enemies. Where is advent asking you to hope? I’m really asking…where?
For me advent, is asking me to hope in the that God is forming something strong and beautiful in me, even if I feel weak and pretty much a wreck. Cynicism offers the constant sly whisper that all I will ever be is what I am. Advent tells me different.
What about you?
Advent causes me to hope as well that Christ is so much bigger and greater than the troubling times we face in this season of history. Advent causes me to hope that no matter what I am facing right now, though it “feels” overwhelming at times, that my joy and satisfaction can be found completely in Him! I am not there, but Advent does cause me to hope as well!
I love that painting! This Advent is asking me to believe in Christ as my Hosanna. Fear and shame lead me to believe that he has forgotten and left me, but Advent is reminding me that he is coming for me.
Advent begs me to be still and contemplate the amazing love that motivated God Almighty to orchestrate one of the most spectacular events in human history.
The other day in “little church” someone felt that God held a word for me: joy. That word struck my heart like the first note in a symphony. It was disruptive but beautiful, and it spoke of great things still to come.
And so, as I wait in advent, I hope for joy.