BE EXPECTANT :: An Attitude of Advent

I.

The exit off the interstate was almost a mile-long with cars filled with people all desperately trying to get to the same place — the mall holding the promise of bargains and one-stop shopping. The parking lot is filled almost to capacity as cars hold up traffic hoping to get the one spot that is three spaces closer to the entrance.

Strollers and bags and purses and packages block the aisle ways of every store and the dressing rooms have waiting lines, as do the food court and the restrooms and the even the kiosks you usually walk past trying to avoid making eye contact.

People everywhere, waiting. Waiting to exit, waiting to park, waiting to eat, waiting to pee, waiting to purchase.

Waiting.

It’s unavoidable and certainly not condemnable, the consumerism part of waiting. We wait because we want to give — and getting the perfect gift to give is worth the wait in the lines and the exits and the food court.

We don’t mind waiting to give.

II.

It’s advent.

One more Sunday before Christmas Day and the preparations are in full swing. Most presents are purchased (hopefully) and are beginning to be placed with care under the tree, beautifully wrapped with loving fingers as we anticipate the recipient’s reaction to each gift. 

Christmas cards have been mailed. Or at least addressed. Or at least ordered. School parties and work parties and church parties fill up the calendar for the next 10 days and plans to drive there to see them are finally solidified. We’re reminded of one last gift we need to get and the pie we need to make and the card to that one person we almost forgot.

There’s always one more thing, isn’t there? The final days before the Greatest Day and we’re filled with a million little one last things. We get overwhelmed and frustrated and seem to forget that we don’t mind waiting to give.

The final days before the Greatest Day and instead of being expectant, we’re exhausted. We suddenly very much mind all the waiting.

III.

Stillness is hard to come by at Christmastime. We want to see and eat and touch and give and receive. There’s so much To Do in order to celebrate the season…but the doing we’re doing seems to celebrate something else altogether.

The word advent means important arrival or coming. It’s something to anticipate, not rush through or tolerate. Of advent, Frederick Buechner says this:

In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air or some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been at a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.

I want this kind of advent. I want the anticipation of the extraordinary thing I have no words for. But that advent doesn’t come in the chaos of doing. It only comes in the stillness of being.

IV.

After 61 straight weeks of podcasts and blog posts, we are pausing in order to be still. We pause to anticipate the advent of Christ — to expectantly await His arrival. To be still and to know that He who came to earth as a babe in cloths in a manger IS GOD. We put away our To Do’s and embrace our To Be’s and sink into the season, our families, our friends, and our Savior.

And we wait not just because we want to give, but because we want to receive.

V.

Be Still Be Free is going to be still until the new year. No podcasts, no blog posts — just us practicing what we preach in order that we might fully participate in the advent of Christ. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming in January, as well as the launch of our brand-new venture, Be Together Bible Studies…but for now, we are simply going to be still in order to embrace the freedom that came down to us as a child in a manger.

And we invite you to do the same.

A new day is dawning: the Sunrise from the heavens will break through in our darkness, and those who huddle in night, those who sit in the shadow of death, will be able to rise and walk in the light, guided in the pathway of peace. [LUKE 1:78-79]

Merry Christmas, and may God bless you and your families this season.