Coming and Going

It is the last Sunday in Advent, in a year that has felt like Advent since March.  We have been in  a waiting mode ever since lockdowns began, waiting for the news, waiting for the vaccine, waiting for the opportunity to be reunited with those we love most, but can only see on our computer screens.

In the church's year, Advent is a time of waiting for the coming of Christ, of preparing for the promised gift of God With Us.  There is the past "coming," the infant born in Bethlehem, and the future "coming," the end of kronos and the time of judgment. But these two comings beg an important question: where is Christ now?  The Gospel of Matthew (28:20) concludes with the promise, "I am with you, even to the end of the age."  Do we not believe that Christ has in fact been here with us all along?  

I do believe that Christ has been present all along - in our longing, in our inventiveness, in our compassion, in our exhaustion.

This has been a year of sacrifice, of absence, of being hollowed out - if we permit - a time in which many of the things we fill ourselves up with have been withheld from us.  How have we filled that inner space?  How has God filled that space for us?

This year, this advent, rather than occupy myself with preparing once again for a birth that happened over 2000 years ago, I wish to attend to that open space, and to invite God to fill that space with the Light of Christ, here and now.  I believe that will be the very best thing I can do for myself, and for the world around me.