Advent One: Hope is Our Work

I’ve been spending time this fall with Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones.

You know the story, recounted in a well-known spiritual: God brings Ezekiel to a valley full of dry bones, instructs him to prophecy, the bones come together, “toe bone connected to the foot bone,” until the bones rise into a mighty army.  The moral: an exuberant “them bones them bones gonna rise again.”

Seen from a comfortable distance, it’s an encouraging vision: even very dry bones, scattered and forgotten, can rise to life again.

The Valley of Dry Bones, Ben Zion, 1952, New York

The view is a little different up close.

Several weeks ago I was praying for some situations that seem beyond impossible. Let me rephrase that: I was supposed to be praying. Instead I was reflecting on how little prayer I had left, and lamenting my investment in a series of obvious lost causes.

I was due to meet that day with a group expecting me to bring a word of encouragement, and I had none.

Sitting with my Bible, brain and heart empty, I found myself picturing Ezekiel in a valley full of bones.

Not just a few bones – lots of bones. In a dry, barren, lifeless place.

I flipped through my Bible to Ezekiel 37: 

“Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” 

Ezekiel, the man, the prophet, is an interesting study. There’s a real person there, if you read the book carefully. He’s precise about when his strange story starts: 

In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River. 

And he’s precise as words allow about all he sees and hears, although he’s clear that the words available don’t quite fit, that his experience is beyond language. It’s all “like” something, like the appearance of something – several removes from what it really was: 

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. 

In a book full of overwhelming sights and difficult instructions, Ezekiel reports as calmly as he can, with only small hints of his personal response. Twice he simply reports himself falling facedown; once he describes sitting by the river “for seven days – overwhelmed.”

But he says nothing of his emotional state in the valley of dry bones.

An alternative translation of Ezekiel 37, by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, offers insight:  

The hand of YHWH, the Breath of Life, was on me,
And in a rushing-breath YHWH brought me forth
and set me in the center of a valley -
Full of bones!
- And led me all around them, all around.
Here! - Very many on the face of the valley,
and here! - utterly dry.
And said to me;
"Child of Adam, earthling, can these bones live?"
I said - "Pillar of the World, Breath of Life -
You know-it-in-your-heart, and only you." 

Today is the first day in the liturgical year – the first Sunday of Advent. In the Anglican tradition, we’ll light the first of four advent candles, read the words of Mark 13:24-37, celebrate the promise of Christ’s second coming.

And we’ll speak of hope.

The hope of earthlings, children of Adam, waiting for the Pillar of the World, Breath of Life, to breath his life into our dead, dry bones.

My son, home for Thanksgiving, handed me a book he brought for me to borrow: “The World is Not Ours to Save: Finding the Freedom to Do Good, by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, founder of the Two Futures Project and now chair of the World Evangelical Alliance's Global Taskforce on Nuclear Weapons.

I’m only a few chapters in, but already I know can see that Wigg-Stevenson has spent time in the valley of dry bones, like Ezekiel, and like me, and has considered the question: can these bones live?

He describes a conversion experience on a back staircase in the Fairmont Hotel in LA, not long after a less-than-successful protest against nuclear weapons: 

I was willing to do anything.  But there was nothing I could do. This realization dropped me midstride. I saw a service stairwell to my right, slipped inside and crumpled on the rough concrete stair. And I wept in despair for the world I so desperately wanted to save from itself. 

Then, for the first – and, to date, the clearest – time in my life, I heard the voice of God.
God said: the World is not yours, not to save or to damn. Only serve the one whose it is. (18)

 If our hope is in ourselves, we are headed for burnout, disillusionment, delusion, despair.

The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, Gustave  Doré,
1866, Paris, France

Ezekiel, in the valley of dry bones, appalled by the very many, very dry bones, knew for certain there was nothing he could do. Yet, when God said “Prophecy,” he did. When God said “Speak,” he said what he was told to say.

And then, in a way, the story grew more alarming. 

So I prophesied as I was commanded.
And while I was prophesying,
there came a voice, and - here! a commotion! -
and the bones came together,
bone to bone.
And I saw - here! - upon them muscles;
Flesh arose, skin covered them;
But there was no breath in them. 

Which is worse: dry scattered bones, or lifeless bodies waiting for breath?

In a way, Advent is a celebration of this place in between: moving toward life, but not there yet.

The Kingdom of God is at hand. The Kingdom is still far in the distance.  

Peace has been proclaimed. Peace is nowhere to be seen.

The dead body is sitting up, but still not speaking clearly

The older I get, the more I invest in people and communities around me, the more clearly I see the depths of our dilemma and the more certain I am that the world is not mine to save.

I am not able to solve or even shake the entrenched racism and oblivious injustice that will put one in three African American men in prison, that continues to question the outrage of one more, and one more, and one more unarmed young man shot dead by those sworn to keep the peace.

My uneven boycott of slave-harvested chocolate, my uneven support of Fair Trade coffee, will never make a dent in immoral labor practices.

I'm not able to ensure safe food, water, air, for my own family, let alone this suffering, sorrowing world.

I can't heal the sick, restore broken families, fix broken systems.

As Wigg-Stevenson observes, in a moving chapter about a trip to Hiroshima to honor those who died there in 1944, 

The sin of the world is not some minor laceration. . . It is a vast and ragged puncture wound driven deep into the lungs and heart of creation itself. The divide stretches between us and God, and between every person and every other person. Even if we cared enough or were good enough to work in perfect concert to try to fix it (though we don’t and aren’t, and thus we won’t) we lack the capacity. The wound of sin is the very ground on which we live, eking out our unpredictable lives along its edge. (61) 

I look at the heritage of war, or slavery, or racism, I study the generations-long trail of abuse, deceit, abondonment, I listen to new stories of brokenness and ask:

The Valley of the Dry Bones, Abraham Rattner,
Urbana, Illinois, 1956

Can these bones live?

Honestly? From what I see? Is healing possible?

No.

Give up.

Forget it.

Yet, we’re told not to give up. We’re commanded to hope.

And not just to hope for a time in the future, but to speak, act, live as agents of that future wholeness alive in this fractured present.

In Ezekiel’s vision, God simply said “Prophecy.”

Ezekiel obeyed.

When bones, flesh, muscle gathered into lifeless forms, Ezekiel didn’t turn and run, didn’t shut his eyes and pretend all was well. He simply waited for the next instruction.

Then obeyed again.

Knowing the earth wasn’t his to save, he chose to serve the one whose it is. 

Then God said,
"Prophesy to the rushing-breath-of-wind -
Prophesy, you child of earth! -
and say to the breathing-wind -
Thus says the Pillar of the World, the Breath of Life -
From the four breathing-winds come, O breath,
And puff upon these slain, that they shall live."

 There are days I start out with no vision of what the next step will be, and then words are given.

There are times when I stand in the middle of dry bones and watch in wonder as they spring to life.

There are moments when the rushing-breath-of-wind breathes through the valleys where I live, and I marvel, and go my way rejoicing.

There are seasons when I simply wait in hope. This is one of those seasons.  

No king is saved by the size of his army;
    no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
    despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
    on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
    and keep them alive in famine.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
    he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
    for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
    even as we put our hope in you.  (Psalm 33:16-22)

modification of Velden Floating Advent Wreath, Johann Jaritz, Austria, 2009
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Austria license.

This is the first in a four week Advent series.

Earlier Advent posts on this blog:

Advent One: Rethinking Portfolios, Dec. 1, 2013
Advent Two: Resisting Idols and Injustice, Dec. 8, 2013
Advent Three: Redefining Home, Dec. 15, 2013
Advent Four: Rejoicing in Mystery, Dec. 22, 2013

 Advent One: How Do I Know? Dec. 2, 2012
Advent Two: Outsiders In Dec. 9, 2012
Advent Three: Question. Fruit. Dec. 16, 2012
Advent Four: Sing Alleluia, Dec. 23, 2012

 Advent One: What I'm Waiting for, Nov. 26, 2011
Metanoia,  Dec 4, 2011
Voice in the Wilderness,  Dec. 11, 2011
Common Miracles,  Dec. 18, 2011
The Christmas Miracle, Dec. 24, 2011 

 Advent Two: John the Baptist,  Dec. 12, 2010
Mary's Song,  Dec. 19, 2010
Christmas Hope,  Dec. 24, 2010 

How Long?

As part of my Lenten observation this year, I'm taking a break from writing new blog posts and updating and re-posting earlier material. Today's post was first shared on March 27, 2011.

Spring break is coming – lots of family vacations, road trips, and that universal refrain: “How long until we get there?”

College graduation is coming too, with the deeper refrain: “How long until I find a job?” “How long until I feel really settled, ready to get on with my life?”

“How long” is a phrase that seems to be part of who we are. We live so much of our lives in that painful in-between time. The journey is started, the destination is in mind, but that time in between seems impossibly long. To quote T.S. Eliot: “ridiculous the waste sad time, stretching before and after.”

This post was prompted by a sermon focused on Abraham in Exodus 12 and Romans 4. Chris Hall, professor, parishioner, author, Bible scholar, wound his way through those two lectionary texts to end with Nicodemus in John 3. It was a challenging, encouraging sermon. 

But I confess, somewhere in the middle of it, I found myself caught in the amazing “how long” of Abraham’s life. I had gone two days earlier to pray for Emily, a girl struck by lightening almost three years before. I went to pray again this week, now almost six years into the continuing story. God has done miraculous things in her life, and healing continues, slowly, almost imperceptibly, but there is a long way yet to go, and her family, and those of us who pray, find ourselves asking “how long?”

So Abraham’s “how long” drew me in. And yes, I still heard every word of the sermon, but I was multitasking as I flipped back and forth between Exodus and Romans.

Abraham was 75 when God promised to make him “a great nation” and showed him the land He would give his offspring. He was 86 when he had a son by Hagar, the servant, rather than by Sarah, his wife. He was 100 when God told him to have his clan circumcised, and said he would have a son by Sarah, not Hagar. And 101 when Isaac was finally born.

That’s a long “how long,” with some serious missteps along the way. What seemed improbable at 75 by 100 was beyond impossible. Yet in Romans 4 Paul says this:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. . .  being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

Am I fully persuaded God has power to do what He’s promised? How long am I willing to wait in hope? And how do I demonstrate that hope, while I wait?

It’s a good question for Lent, this in-between time, these days of waiting, and listening, and longing for resurrection.

That refrain, “how long,” is echoed throughout scripture. Sometimes it’s God’s people, crying to him “how long”:

My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? 

Throughout the psalms the cry goes on:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? 
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

 How long will the enemy mock you, God?

How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever?

How long must your servant wait?

The question continues on through the prophets:

How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered?

 How long,Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

Even in John’s Revelation, the cry continues: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 

We ask “how long,” and yet, God asks the same of us:

How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?”

 How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? 

How long?

As I’ve been thinking about how much of our lives we spend in waiting, I’ve been struck with how, despite the waiting, the time goes flying by. It’s one of those baffling mysteries: we ride along asking “how long?” and then, suddenly, the ride is over, and we realize we missed it.

We are prisoners of time. We can’t make it move faster, no matter how we tinker with technology, trying to save time, speed time, rearrange time. And we can’t make it move slower. There’s a line from Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill that comes back to me now and then:

Time held me green and dying,
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Time holds me green and dying, and as I wait, to see justice on the earth, to see promises fulfilled, the challenge is to fill the moments as they fly by, to live as someone who “against all hope, in hope believes.”  

The service I'm remembering ended with Al Gordon’s amazing anthem, “How Long.” It’s a powerful expression of longing, waiting, and affirmation. Cruising the internet for a faithful rendition of it, I came across a powerful Tearfund video that captures my hope: to live each day as if justice is on its way, to redeem each minute because the promises are true. To wake up each day to the opportunities and challenges of that day, and to work at whatever I’m given as an offering toward the day that’s coming.

Yet, I confess, part of the recording doesn't resonate with me: too triumphant? Too exuberant? The longing is easy to sing, the confidence much harder. 

Chris Hall talks often about the “music” of scripture, the song that sings through it we’re often too tone-deaf to hear. The “how long” song we sing is part of that music, and the song has contrapuntal parts. Repeated, again and again, “how long”: until questions are answered, until healing comes, until justice appears, until we sing the victory song. 

And then, for those who hope and believe, there’s the answering refrain:

Yes I know, you will come.
Yes I know, you’ve already won.
Yes I know, my redeemer lives.
My redeemer lives.

Woven through both the longing and the hope is the prayer:

Come, Lord Jesus, we are desperate for you here.
Come, Lord Jesus, all creation crying out.

Take a few minutes to listen and watch. Can you pray or sing along? As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome; look for the __ comments link below to leave your comments. 

Days in the Desert

As part of my Lenten observation this year, I'm taking a break from writing new blog posts and updating and re-posting earlier material. Today's post was first shared on February 19, 2012. 

Desert with a Papelillo Tree, Lon&Queta, Mexico, 2007
Flickr Creative Commons

You, God, 

   are my God,
   earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
   my whole being 

  longs for you,
in a dry 

   and parched land
   where there is no 

   water.

  (from Psalm 64)

The season of Lent is meant to remind us of Jesus’ forty days in the desert, in preparation for his ministry. It also echoes other desert passages: among them, the Israelites' forty years in the wilderness before entering the promised land, Elijah's forty days of waiting in a desert cave.

The theme of desert runs through scripture: Abraham’s desert years, between promise and fulfillment of an heir. Moses, running from Egypt, resigned to nomadic life far from his people.

Some deserts look a little different: Jacob’s fourteen years laboring for his father-in-law Laban. Joseph’s years in a dark prison cell.

Part of the desert experience is deprivation: the loss of comfort, familiarity, people we love, places we feel safe. 

But even more, the desert is a place of question: what did God have in mind? Why did he say I was chosen, only to be left here in this dry, desolate place?

The Israelites, facing the desert, wanted to go back to slavery in Egypt.

 Abraham took matters in his own hands: pretending Sarah was his sister, fathering a child by Hagar. 

The desert is a place of testing: what does faithfulness look like, when nothing is as we had hoped or imagined?

Our practice of Lent, giving up chocolate or dessert, fasting a meal or two each week, doesn’t get us far in our experience of desert. But for me, the season of Lent is a reminder to press in to that knowledge of desert we all carry with us.

We set out on this journey expecting life would be easy. Trusting God would meet every need. Certain our fellow travelers would support and encourage us along the way.

And then things took a turn. Our prayers seemed to go unanswered. Our struggles grew greater, not less. A trusted friend – a fellow Christian - betrayed us. Those we turned to for help looked the other way.

The wilderness, the desert, is part of this life of following Christ. It’s reassuring, even comforting, in a strange sort of way, to spend time each year remembering this. We sometimes think, in our desert times, that God has forgotten us, or that we must have imagined what we know to be true. Yet Jesus himself, God’s beloved son, was led into the desert by an angel.

David, “a man after God’s own heart,” logged plenty of time in the desert, and left us his desert songs to remind us:

Hear my prayer, Lord;
   let my cry for help come to you.
Do not hide your face from me
   when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
   when I call, answer me quickly.
 For my days vanish like smoke;
   my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
   I forget to eat my food.
In my distress I groan aloud
   and am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl,
   like an owl among the ruins.
Psalm 102

Desert Scene, Mahatma4711, India, 2006
Flickr Creative Commons

The desert leads us back toward humility: we don’t have the answers. We aren’t in charge. We are small people, held in the hands of a mighty God.

I love the story of Elijah’s meltdown: he faced off the prophets of Ba’al and wicked king Ahaz with amazing boldness, then ran off to the wilderness and collapsed beneath a broom bush, saying: “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 

God sent an angel to feed him, and then Elijah traveled on for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God, where he had a rendezvous with God. The full story is in 1 Kings 19. It’s an encounter with mystery, with power, and a reminder that God is in charge, has a plan, and that Elijah is not alone: God is with him, and there are others who are faithful.

It helps to share our own stories of desert, to hear other’s stories, and to be reminded: the desert is part of the story. Not the start, definitely not the end. Psalm 107 encourages us: 

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
   his love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
   those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
those he gathered from the lands,
   from east and west, from north and south.
 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
   finding no way to a city where they could settle.
They were hungry and thirsty,
   and their lives ebbed away.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
   and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
   to a city where they could settle.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
   and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
for he satisfies the thirsty
   and fills the hungry with good things. 

The desert isn’t the whole story, but it’s an important part. And in our desert times, we do well to remember: we don’t have the answers. We aren’t the ones in charge. We’re called to be faithful, and to wait in hope, even when waiting is hard, and hope seems impossible. Lent leads to Good Friday, and beyond that, to the resurrection. 

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

 You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
       (T.S. Eliot, East Coker III) 

Desert(ed), Jarjan Fisher, Jordan, 2012, Flilckr Creative Commons

In what ways have your own desert experiences led your closer to God or to others?

What spiritual practices bring comfort or wisdom during your desert days?

 Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments. 

Advent I: What I'm Waiting For

Exiles in Babylon, L. Castelli

2700 years ago, in a period of disruption and deepening injustice, prophetic voices spoke out against dishonest leaders, corrupt business practices, oppression of strangers, misuse of workers. They warned of famine, drought, barren land, social upheaval, danger from all sides. The situation they described was bleak; the days beyond, they said, would be harder still.

But somewhere in the future, beyond the hardship and destruction, they foresaw a new leader, a righteous king, someone who would bring healing instead of harm, light instead of darkness. They spoke of a future day of justice, of plenty, when even the poor would have their own land to farm, their own homes to live in, when those who had been hungry would be filled with good things, when those who had oppressed would be brought low, and equity restored.

Hundreds of years later,in another time of disruption and injustice, in a time of almost global corruption and oppression, new voices spoke: angel voices, saying “The time is now.” “The promised one is coming.”

And a young woman from the edge, a powerless no one, found herself waiting as the angel’s voice took shape within her, then gave words herself to what she knew was coming:

Virgin of the Annunciation,
Fra Angelico, Florence, 1400s

“From now on all generations will call me blessed,

 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

   holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

   from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

   he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

   but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

   but has sent the rich away empty.”

Her son Jesus - the promised child, the “word made flesh,” strange man of love and kindness who faced down the powerful, welcomed the outcast, healed the sick, raised the dead – Jesus fulfilled some of the prophecies made, but not all. He brought healing, but not justice. He restored individuals, but not nations. He calmed the sea, but left the desert places dry.

He spoke of his kingdom as here, but coming. Now, and not yet.

So some rejected him. He was not the king they’d been waiting for.

And some accepted the partial kingdom and assumed that was all there was: individual salvation. Personal healing. A promise of eternal life, somewhere far away. The rest that was promised – justice, restoration, redemption of nations, lands, all things – too good to be true. Leave it for heaven.

Advent, these days of waiting for Christ to come, of remembering the weeks before his birth, is a time of longing. “Come thou long awaited Jesus, Come to set thy people free.” “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”

We smother the waiting, the longing, in hurry: gift lists, parties to attend. Decorations, Christmas cards.

And we lose the connection between this time of disruption, unrest, injustice, and the promises made so many years ago.

Nativity, Fritz Eichenberg, 1954

But when we pause, we find the longing lingers: for a way of life more satisfying, more fair. For leaders more concerned for those they lead than their own financial gain. For a wise use of resources, that leaves the land more healthy than it started. For real community, real connections, honest conversation.

What am I waiting for this Christmas? What am I longing for?

I’m longing for those who claim the name of Christ to live as agents of his kingdom. There are some, faithful followers, using their gifts, resources, time, energy, to demonstrate the kingdom Jesus told us was unfolding among us. There are others who promote the agendas of greed, environmental harm, penalties to the poor, more and more power to the rich.

We pray, week after week, in churches around the globe, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” then hurry on our way with no thought of what that might mean, now, here, in this place we call home.

Isaiah prophesied seven hundred years before Christ:

   “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
   because he has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
   and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus, standing in the synagogue at the start of his years of visible ministry, read that passage, then told all listening: “Today this is fulfilled in your hearing.”

But not all prisoners and oppressed were set free. Not all blind recovered sight. The poor are still waiting to hear the good news.

Jesus healing a leper, sketch by Rembrandt

I’m waiting for that. Longing for that.

And I’m waiting for those of us who follow Christ to live out the knowledge that while Jesus met, and meets, with people one by one, the intent was always to knit them into communities, families, the inter-woven, interdependent body of Christ, a visible community of light that extends around the globe, that reaches across time.

“Love each other,” Jesus said, again and again. And showed how to do it: touching lepers. Eating with sell-outs to the Roman regime. Allowing known prostitutes to touch him. Calmly crossing divides of race, religion, gender, to welcome and restore those who were rejected.

That’s what the church is supposed to look like. I see glimpses, now and then. But for the most part, the church is balkanized by race, politics, income level. Divided again and again over things like women in leadership, forms of baptism, liturgical nuance, exegesis of Genesis and Revelations.

Love each other? We look past each other – amputated body parts, ineffective in every way.

I long for Christians, myself included, to be real reflections of Christ. And I long for the church to be the church he had in mind. His body, a place of welcome, love, healing. I confess my own failings in these, and long for a community that will challenge me to do better.

And  yes – I long for, wait for, pray for Christ to come. I pray for him to come, to me, in me, through me, every day. And I pray for him to come to his church, his people, to be visible, to be known.

But I pray, too, for him to come again as the righteous judge, the king of glory, the great I AM. To set this mess right. To restore justice. To set the prisoners free.

What am I waiting for, this advent season? I’m waiting for the fulfillment of the vision of the prophets so long ago, working toward it now, longing for it later:

He will teach us his ways,

  so that we may walk in his paths. . .

He will judge between many peoples

   and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

   and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

   nor will they train for war anymore.

Everyone will sit under their own vine

   and under their own fig tree,

and no one will make them afraid,

   for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

Peaceable Kingdom, Fritz Eichenberg, 1950

This post is part of a monthly synchroblog, a group of bloggers posting monthly on the same theme. This month's theme: Jesus Is Coming: What Do You Expect? Other entries are listed below:

• ron cole at the weary pilgrim – advent: reimagining everything
• liz dyer at grace rules – expect the unexpected
• sarah styles bessey at emerging mummy – in which i’m expecting something from advent
• miz melly at perchance to dream – parousia
• kathy escobar at the carnival in my head – present, humble, vulnerable
• David Perry at Visual Theology – Advent As A Mirror of Possibility
• Christine Sine at Godspace – Jesus Is Coming What Do We Expect?
• Liz VerHage at Living Theology
• Sally Coleman at Sally’s Journey – Come Spirit of Advent
• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – Jesus Is Returning Today
• Glenn Hager – Antithetical Advent
• Tammy Carter at Blessing The Beloved – His Gift … the way of escape!
• Ellen Haroutunian – Remember Our Story
• Mihee Kim-Kort – Advent Expectations: Keep Awake
• Wendy McCaig – We’re Expecting A Baby
• John Reid at Blog One Another – Undiscovered Advent: The Second Coming of Christ
• Dave Wainscott – For Advent I’m Expecting What I Desire and What I Deserve

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments. 

How Long?

Spring break is coming – lots of family vacations, road trips, and that universal refrain: “How long until we get there?”

College graduation is coming too, with the deeper refrain: “How long until I find a job?” “How long until I feel really settled, ready to get on with my life?”

“How long” is a phrase that seems to be part of who we are. We live so much of our lives in that painful in-between time. The journey is started, the destination is in mind, but that time in between seems impossibly long: to quote T.S. Eliot once again, “ridiculous the waste sad time, stretching before and after.”

Our sermon last Sunday focused on Abraham in Exodus 12 and Romans 4. Chris Hall, our much-loved professor, parishioner, author, and Bible genius, wound his way through those two lectionary texts to end with Nicodemus in John 3. It was a challenging, encouraging sermon, (and if you missed it, I highly recommend it). 

But I confess, somewhere in the middle of it, I found myself caught in the amazing “how long” of Abraham’s life. I had gone two days earlier to pray for Emily, a girl struck by lightening almost three years ago. God has done miraculous things in her life, but there is a long way yet to go, and her family, and those of us who pray, find ourselves asking “how long?”

So Abraham’s “how long” drew me in. And yes, I still heard every word of the sermon, but I was multitasking as I flipped back and forth between Exodus and Romans.

Abraham was 75 when God promised to make him “a great nation” and showed him the land He would give his offspring. He was 86 when he had a son by Hagar, the servant, rather than by Sarah, his wife. He was 100 when God told him to have his clan circumcised, and said he would have a son by Sarah, not Hagar. And 101 when Isaac was finally born.

That’s a long “how long,” with some serious missteps along the way. What seemed improbable at 75 by 100 was beyond impossible. Yet in Hebrews 4 Paul says this:

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. . .  being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

Am I fully persuaded God has power to do what He’s promised? How long am I willing to wait in hope? And how do I demonstrate that hope, while I wait?

That refrain, “how long,” is echoed through scripture. Sometimes it’s God’s people, crying to him “how long”: “My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?” (Psalm 6)  Throughout the psalms the cry goes on: How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? How long will the enemy mock you, God?  How long, Lord, will you be angry? How long must your servant wait?

The question continues on through the prophets: “ How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” And even in John’s Revelation, the cry continues: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (Revelation 6)

We ask “how long,” and yet, God asks the same of us: “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?” (Exodus 16)  “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? How long will this wicked community grumble against me?” (Numbers 14)  “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” (1 Kings 18)

How long?

As I’ve been thinking about how much of our lives we spend in waiting, I’ve been struck with how, despite the waiting, the time goes flying by. It’s one of those baffling mysteries: we ride along asking “how long?” and then, suddenly, the ride is over, and we realize we missed it.

We are prisoners of time. We can’t make it move faster, no matter how we tinker with technology, trying to save time, speed time, rearrange time. And we can’t make it move slower. There’s a line from Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill that comes back to me now and then: “Time held me green and dying, Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

Time holds me green and dying, and as I wait, to see justice on the earth, to see promises fulfilled, the challenge is to fill the moments as they fly by, to live as someone who “against all hope, in hope believes.”  

Our service ended last week with Al Gordon’s amazing anthem, “How Long.” It’s a powerful expression of longing, waiting, and affirmation. Cruising the internet for a faithful rendition of it, I came across a powerful Tearfund video that captures my hope: to live each day as if justice is on its way, to redeem each minute because the promises are true. To wake up each day to the opportunities and challenges of that day, and to work at whatever I’m given as an offering toward the day that’s coming.

Chris Hall talks often about the “music” of scripture, the song that sings through it that we’re often too tone-deaf to hear. The “how long” song we sing is part of that music, and the song has contrapuntal parts. Repeated, again and again, “how long”: until questions are answered, until healing comes, until justice appears, until we sing the victory song. 

And then, for those who hope and believe, there’s the answering refrain: “Yes I know, you will come. Yes I know, you’ve already won. Yes I know, my redeemer lives, my redeemer lives.”

Woven through both the longing and the hope is the prayer: "Come, Lord Jesus, we are desperate for you here. Come, Lord Jesus, all creation crying out."

Check out this video, enter into it in prayer, and see if you can sing along.

 Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.