We are no longer in Ordinary Time. We have entered the season of Advent, and all around me I hear calls to hope, to anticipation, to stillness. I know that I am supposed to mirror the prayerful waiting, the confident expectation of God’s deliverance that the prophets Anna and Simeon so beautifully embody, but this year, my spirit is drawing me elsewhere.
For Christians, Advent condenses into four weeks what Israel had experienced for centuries: waiting and longing for God to break in, for God to keep his promise of salvation. Generation after generation prayed, waited and wondered, “When, God, when?”
The thing is, I do know when and how and who and where and even why God finally set in motion his plan to redeem the broken world. And somehow that is making it hard for me this year to muster the appropriate Advent attitude of hopeful, reverent waiting.
What I have been contemplating is how Advent reveals three aspects of God: The God who Came, the God Who Comes and the God Who Will Come. Each of these asks its own questions and presents its own challenges to how I live my life. This week, we consider the God Who Came.
In commemorating The God Who Came, we remember the beautifully mysterious story of how God broke into history by becoming a baby. We retell the stories of Elizabeth and Zechariah, of Mary and Joseph, of angels bearing news of impossible pregnancies and the coming of the Savior. We marvel at what God did in that time and place, with these people who are as familiar to us as our own family. Young, faithful, brave Mary. Loving, loyal, obedient Joseph. The shepherds, the angels, the magi and the evil King Herod. Like all good family stories, we tell stories of the God Who Came lovingly, reverently, nostalgically.
The problem is, it can be easy to relegate the story to Advent Past, leaving my tidy, 21st century life untouched. Don’t get me wrong — I love the stories of Advent Past. But I don’t think they are meant to stay safely boxed, to be taken out once a year, like the nativity on my mantle. When all the comforting nostalgia is put aside, what difference does it make to me here and now that God Came? In Luke’s Gospel, we hear the story of a demon-possessed man, living in the tombs in the hills of the Decapolis, and his encounter with Jesus:
“When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (Luke 8:28)
Unlike many who were presumably “in their right minds”, this tortured soul recognizes Jesus for who He is. And he knows that he will not emerge from the encounter unchanged.
“What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
This question echoes through the ages, from the tombs of the Decapolis to the cul-de-sac I live on. It reminds me that the mission of The God Who Came is at once universal and intensely individual. God came and taught and loved and laughed and cried and suffered and died and defeated death. And He meant it to change the world. And He means it to change me.
“What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” This Advent, instead of quietly anticipating the arrival of The God Who Came, I find myself at His feet, wondering: Where do you want me to go? Who do you want me to serve? What will you ask of me? Like Mary during the very first Advent, I find I have many things to ponder in my heart.