The Hope of The Lord

" First of all, you must understand, . . . . scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is this coming He promised?' . . . . But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. . . .So, then dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found blameless and at peace with Him". [2 Peter 3: 3-14].

With God, time is elastic. We humans are bound in earthly time, the time of clocks and calendars and waiting. We grow impatient, with life, with ourselves, even with God.

When, Lord, will I ever learn to ride a bicycle? When, Lord, will I make a best friend? When, Lord, will I graduate from school? When, Lord, will I find a job? When, Lord, will I meet my soul mate? And so it goes, our whole lives.

We want things to be perfect. And we want it now. That is, we want it in human time ---sooner rather than later. And we want things to come "in the proper order", as we see it. We want things to come, in the way we want them to come.


Can we ever understand that maybe we humans are being judged, just as much by how we wait, as by the end result?

Advent is a waiting. It is the preparation for the coming of the Lord. Our concept of time would be quite different if we could only think of Advent as a process. In old movies, the pages of a calendar would twist and fly away as if by magic. Today, when watching a movie at home, we can "fast-forward" through the slow or boring parts.

We cannot fast forward through the boring or difficult or even painful parts in real life, though. We must wait things out. We must go through what life brings our way. Advent tells us that the preparation-- the process-- is just as important as the arrival.

A dear friend used to tell me that we WILL all have to wait. So then, the issue becomes simply one of how we wait.

I remember times in my life when the waiting was excruciating. I waited my first 26 years for a human being to hug me and say, "I love you!" During this time, I was a child. I would sometimes turn away from any hope that humans could give me love. I would run away and hide. Other times, I was angry or in despair.

Later, I was blessed enough to get married. But my husband and I had to wait 15 years before we became parents. All over again, I was sometimes angry, sometimes in despair. Sometimes, I felt like giving up.

You see, I had my own ideas of how things should go. I told God that I deserved a loving family of origin. If I could not have that, then, I deserved to get married and to have children. I wanted my poetic justice, as a triumph over my past.

I am now married. My husband has changed my life; he has changed ME. I am now the mother of a beautiful son. Our son came at a time that I did not expect, in a way that I did not expect. He is everything I could have hoped for or prayed for in a child. He was totally worth the wait.


I still do not understand why I had to wait so long for my very own loving family ? I still do not understand why the "love" in my family of origin was so painful and so very imperfect. I still do not understand why I had to wait something like 40 years before enjoying this time of supreme happiness?

Advent is like that!! We do not fully understand this promise of a loving Father clearing away all of our sins and transforming the world. We do not understand the timing of it, any more than we understand when Jesus will come again. We do not understand the "why of it". Why do we, as humans, deserve the coming of a divine presence in our world? We do not understand the "how" of it. Who knew that God would accomplish this by sending us His only Son in human form?


Who could have foreseen the power  and joy of His Son? During Advent, the only practice that works for me is my faith, my trust that God knows things that we cannot know. 


During Advent, I try to ignore the skeptics and the scoffers. My own family would say things like, "Immaculate Conception! Does anyone really believe that?!" To me, Advent IS the season to prepare the way for something, for Someone more sacred, more holy, more divine.  Our world can be so ugly, so divisive, so violent. I cannot live with the thought that that is all there is. I NEED to believe!   


When Christmas is coming, I feel beside myself with impatience. But in Advent, I try my best to practice patience with others, and with myself. I give others my peace-- not my irritation, my stress, my hurried and harried self. I want my Advent to be about peace, not strife.


As Advent unfolds, I long for the joy, the hope, the peace, the promise. I am also mindful of the many ways in which I, as a human being, fall far short of these. I can never be as perfect, as divine as Jesus. But I march always towards Him, as my Guide, the Sign for our future.

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