For the Darker Days of Advent

In my adult life I have come to better understand and appreciate the church calendar. I love the rhythm that it creates and how it allows me to pace my heart to the life of Christ. Advent is a season that I particularly love. I love the idea of preparing my heart for His arrival, the baby in the manger, the symbolism of the advent wreath, and taking time each week to light the advent candles and reflect with my husband.

Each year around this time, I find myself in desperate need of Advent. In need of something to make me to slow down, pause, and set my heart and mind towards the reality that truly matters. Just this morning I was thinking of all of the questions in my own journey, and again marveled at how Advent so perfectly mirrors these questions.

Advent is a season about hope, sure, but I think there is much to be said for the agonizing wait and blind faith of advent. My mind thinks back to centuries of prophecies and promises waiting to be fulfilled. Scores of prophets looking like fools, and decades of desperate hearts wondering when the promised Messiah and redemption would finally come. What we mark in four weeks time was stretched across a dark page of history, when all that filled space and time was the waiting.

I found myself in my own place of waiting and worry this morning, I couldn’t help but think about Mary. If there ever was an unknown path, hers was certainly it. If there was ever a couple to shake their heads in confusion at the work of Almighty God, surely it was those two outcast and weary travelers. And yet in the midst of the badgering questions, their own doubt and even despair – they followed a distant star. They clung to what God had spoken to them, and matched their steps to His voice regardless of how bizarre it might seem. I wonder if Mary’s pregnancy was one that was full of doubt and questions, and it wasn’t until angels filled the sky and shepherds bowed prostrate that the hope of her heart was fully realized.

But just like Mary, I am encouraged to think that regardless of the direction of the path and weight of the doubt, the reality of who Christ is remains unchanged. Despite Mary's and my own limited faith and understanding, the infant Jesus burst forth demanding the worship of all of heaven. This Advent I am confessing that who Christ is is unchanged by how he decides to appear in my life, or whatever dark and wandering road might lead me to His appearing. I don't want my steps to ever profess that I don't believe His promises to be true, and I want to be among the first to worship at His feet, in whatever unlikely place that might find me.