I'm Trying to Love Advent
Photo by Gareth Harper on Unsplash
I love Christmas. I am trying to love Advent. To be honest I am not that good at waiting in my life. Perhaps many who read this could identify. On the whole, we Americans are not the most patient bunch.
During this Advent season, I want to jump straight to celebrating Christmas. I love the fun and festivities. I love the lights and the music and the cookies…all of it. But I think God is also wanting to teach me something about waiting. Not rushing through to the end, but waiting on him and his timing. He is teaching me how to trust him with a promise before I see the final fruit.
That’s what advent is all about. It’s a time of hopeful expectation as we look forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior while waiting on his return.
Recently I was reflecting on the first chapter of Luke’s gospel and the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. The beginning of the Gospel is situated in a time when the Jewish people are collectively waiting. For hundreds of years, they’ve been longing for the promised Messiah. In chapter 1, though, we get a more intimate glimpse into a family that has been waiting. This couple now in old age is waiting for a child and they have reached a point where that seems impossible.
Right in the midst of that impossibility, an angel visits Zechariah. It’s interesting where he receives this heavenly visitation. Zechariah is doing one of his two annual weeks of priestly duty at the temple. With somewhere near 18,000 priests at the time, there was a rotation of service in Jerusalem. During this special time of service, Zechariah is chosen by lots for a sacred task. This role of burning incense was so holy that it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Once you had been chosen to do this one time you never were selected again. This incense offering happened in a section of the temple so sacred that it was only surpassed by the Holy of Holies.
It’s interesting to me that the Lord has arranged his answer to the prayers of these faithful servants to come at this unique time. This is a reminder to us that we simply do not see the whole picture as God does. Zechariah and Elizabeth have gone years with this unanswered prayer. In this midst of their steady service perhaps it has felt like God was silent. But what they could not see or know was the incredible plan that God was unfolding. He had selected this sacred space, this once-in-a-lifetime moment to reveal an answer to Zecharaiah, that was actually bigger than the request they had been seeking.
Where are you waiting on God right now in your life or ministry? Are there areas where it feels like God is silent?
Here’s my encouragement to you (and to myself this Advent season)...
1. Waiting doesn’t mean that God is not working. In fact, waiting is exactly God’s plan because he wants to use the in-between time to shape us! Sometimes the process of waiting on an answer to prayer is more important than the answer itself. God cares more about our character and our transformation than he does our comfort. (And this is true in the collective life of a congregation just as much as it is for an individual.)
2. Answers that don’t meet your expectations might just be the answers that are better than you could have imagined. I am guessing that the specific request of Zechariah and Elizabeth was not to have a baby when they were super old. That’s hard. There’s a reason grandparents celebrate the ability to hand young children back over to their parents at the end of a visit! And yet, God was doing more than answering the longing of their hearts, he was also answering the cries of his people and bringing through them the one who would point the way to the Messiah. Have you considered that sometimes God has something even better in mind for you than the small request you keep putting before him?
I find it interesting that in the midst of his doubt the way the Lord chooses to work in Zechariah’s life is to make him silent. For 9 months he is going to actively learn what it looks like to wait on the promise of God when you don’t get to have any say in it yourself.
As I was reading this story again this year for some reason it made me think of the passage in Exodus 14 when the Israelites are stuck between the Pharaoh’s armies crashing in on one side and the Red Sea on the other. In the midst of that impossible situation, Moses says to them, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:14, ESV)
Active waiting, choosing to be silent before the Lord, is an act of faith. It’s a posture that reminds us that he is God and we are not. Silent waiting is a place of surrender to the plans of God and a choice to trust in his goodness.
I don’t know what you are waiting on right now. I am confident that there are unanswered prayers in your family and in your church. What if this Advent the answer is not more scheming and fussing to try and fix it? What if the posture the Lord is inviting you to is trust-filled waiting? The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.