You may not realise it but life finds its shape in rhythm and routine: humans are formed by the necessary pattern of events and seasons we give ourselves to. For me, in a normal year, March = birthday, late April = snooker, June = Glastonbury, July = Wimbledon, September = new academic year, December = carol singing. Although your markers will likely differ from mine, because very little has happened where and as we’re used to this year, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel more than a little disoriented at the moment. Interestingly though, the questions we’re asking are not only about what we should do, but run deeper to who we are.
Actions and identity are far more intertwined than we’re often willing to admit.
In some parts of the Church (particularly its Evangelical branch), I get the impression that increasingly, and specifically during the significant festivals of Christmas and Easter each year, there is pressure to come up with something new. There’s a push to do everything possible to avoid going through the motions again; find a way to bring life back into the story; invigorate the old material. While I am all for creativity in the Church’s ongoing re-contextualisation of The Story, I am concerned that we have given up practising our identity in exchange for a quick fix. There’s something in being formed by waiting that makes us who we are and forms us into the image of the God we follow. The Good News of the incarnation is God with us in the present. The Prince of Peace transforms the now, not by beaming us out of this reality into another but by meeting us in the dirt of an unknown backwater and inviting us to follow the model of embodying the promise of real life for all.
Like no year before, what the world needs most from the Church this Advent is a model of finding joy in the waiting
My point is this – like no year before (or hopefully ever again), what the world needs most from the Church this Advent is a model of finding joy in the waiting (for a vaccine or otherwise!). Not a cheap escape to a false, temporary happiness, but a Church comfortable in her own skin. The people of God are not just those who wait because we’re told to, as those who anticipate the redemption of all things in Christ, waiting is central to our identity … not just our actions. As is often the case in Christianity, our experience is paradoxical: God has intervened for once and all and yet we await God’s further and complete intervention. Thus, the function of Advent is for the Church to re-discover her identity in the God she serves and witness that to the world in her waiting. It’s about going back to the same well over and over again, not moving onto an alternative source of life! I want to be shaped by and into the likeness of the unexpected, unassuming and vulnerable messiah presented in the Bible. I want to practice finding joy there.
So, if you desperately need a mince pie to get through the day, don’t let me stop you but perhaps hold back on rushing too quickly through the scenes of social shaming, homelessness, political upheaval, refugee crisis and physical pain that surround the birth of the Christ child. I am going to do all I can this year to fully linger in the disorientation and confusion of Advent because as illogical as it may sound, I believe that’s where tidings of comfort and joy are really found.