I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. (Ps 130:5)

Waiting in the dark can feel endless. I cannot see any horizon. There is no way to measure distance or time. It is simply waiting in the long, lonely night.

I have waited days, weeks, and sometimes months in the dark. Over the years, other pilgrims have shared their stories of waiting in the dark. In the long night of crying out to God, the heart can feel ill at ease, fearful, alone, forgotten, forsaken. 

The Psalmist graces us with words and prayers for these seasons of absence, of loss, of waiting. 

Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord!

In the depths of pain and sorrow, the heart cries, “O Lord, hear my voice!”

At times, it feels as though the cry echoes through a bottomless cave. Does it ever rise from the depths to the throne of God?

Waiting in the dark can feel like abandonment. The psalmist cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1) It seems as though God has turned his back. It seems as though God is not there. 

All through the Psalms, we hear the cries, “Do not forsake me!” And, “Do not hide your face in my distress!” (102:2)

These are the prayers that open Advent. In these cries, I hear the cries of God’s people. Cries that I’ve groaned in seasons of anguish. Cries that rise even now from the mouths of people near and people far. I pass people each day who know these desperate cries in the midnight hour. They still have to work, live, raise a family, and carry secret burdens in their hearts each day. 

There those far away who cry from prison cells, “O my God, be not far from me!” (Ps 38:21) Some will die in those prisons, still crying out, still trusting in the goodness of God.

In Advent, we might carry the cries of those around us before the throne God. In this sense, Advent is not simply about warm devotions, but about desperate cries to the God who is faithful, was faithful, will be faithful.

Waiting in the dark can feel like lighting a lamp as we look for the coming dawn. The crying heart learns the mystery of bitter water turned to springs of joy. We cry out with all of God’s people to the God who has entered our cries and prayed them from the place of the cross.

We cry out for all those alone in the dark and even those stumbling in the dark far from the way of the Lord. We pray with the Psalmist,

^“Send out your light and your truth; let them lead [us]; let them bring [us] to your holy hill and to your dwelling!” (Ps 43:3)

Advent tears open the night like a flash of lightning hope. It sounds an alarm, awaking us from the stupor of struggle and toil. Our world is lulled to sleep by the droning of kings, the marching of boots, and the frenzy of crisis. Not just this age, but every age.

When Hebrew exiles finally returned home after seventy years of captivity, they were like those who dream. Years later, the Temple and the land still sat in rubble as discouragement replaced courage to rebuild the ancient ruins. Emperors rose and fell. Rulers came and went. Everyone sought to carve out his own little kingdom, but all the kingdoms were falling even at the height of glory. Kings and kingdoms continue conquering while also failing and falling from glory.

Advent shakes the soul awake to The King, The Judge, The One and Only Hope for all creation. When he speaks the earth trembles, and everything that can shake will shake. He comes not to kill, steal, and destroy, but to heal the brokenhearted, set the fatherless in families, and welcome the weak and weary into His yoke of love.

In this night of worldly worry, let us lift up our eyes for hope is drawing near. The longing of ages, the Savior of humanity is come, has come, will come. He’s breaking into our lives even now.

Christmas lights are popping up in the neighborhood and holiday tunes dance through the stores. It’s time for the yearly gluttony of eating and buying. It’s also time for Advent, a season of repentance, focused on watching and waiting for the coming of the Lord. The call to devotion and the call to consume compete for attention.

It is tempting to bemoan the incongruity, but this juxtaposition of spirit and flesh has been common in every age. Late medieval communities often held the Advent call to times of fasting and prayer alongside the unusual and Christmas rituals of cross-dressing, public drunkenness, gluttony, and the ongoing threat of mobs demanding “figgy pudding” and more from the wealthy residents.

Puritan opposition to Christmas was in part due to the reckless and dangerous behaviors present during the season. They also feared that the various feasts and fasts of the church year could distract from the primary emphasis of each Sunday as Resurrection Day. I value their emphasis on the Resurrection even as I celebrate the rhythms of the year. It simply reminds me of the value of proclaiming and hearing the Gospel each Sunday and feasting at the Lord’s Table.

Keeping the focus on God’s redeeming action has always been a challenge. Popular trends can distract us from observing the rhythms of the church year. It’s easy to feel caught between the demands of work, family and life with the call to worship God in all things. I believe the rhythm of the year can help us as we face this tension. Learning the simple rhythms of the year can help us to grow into a life of devotion over time. We don’t have to escape the culture but learn small ways of turning our hearts toward the Lord.

Ancient Israel felt the tension of surrounding cultures dedicated to land gods. Their harvest festivals included sexual deviancy and other forbidden behaviors. The Lord instructed Israel to turn the harvest seasons into times of remembrance of his grace. During the barley festival, Israel celebrated the Passover feast. During the wheat harvest, Israel celebrated the feast of Pentecost, and during the fruit harvest, Israel celebrated the feast of Booths. Historical events that marked God’s redeeming action in their midst became the focal point of the celebration. While surrounding cultures were celebrating harvest feasts, Israel was remembering the Lord’s action as He redeemed them from Egypt, gave them the Ten Commandments, and led them through the wilderness. These joyful celebrations were a form of festal memory. As the Hebrews rehearsed patterns of trust in God’s faithfulness they were being re-oriented in time and space toward a life of true worship.

Active remembering is not simply thinking or speaking about God’s redeeming action. It includes specific foods, music, movement, and reflection. This physical and spiritual remembering is making the past present. The descendants in the Promised Land could say that they were a slaves in Egypt redeemed by the Lord. In Deuteronomy, the parent is exhorted to train the child in the midst of all the postures of a typical day: standing, seated, lying down, and walking. These daily actions and festal actions were ways of training the memory and the body in the way of the Lord.

I would suggest that the church year is based on this same way of involving the body and the heart in remembering God’s goodness in our midst. In the middle of a world turned away from God, we re-turn to the Lord through the rhythm of daily prayer, weekly worship, and yearly cycles of remembering. The feasts and fasts of the church year are times set aside for remembering the historical action of God in Jesus Christ. As we remember, we bring the range of human emotions and experiences from birth to death into worship. We rehearse in worship, in song, in Scripture, and in story the grief of pain and loss, the hope of God’s faithfulness, and the joy of His surprise coming.

When I was little, we hung Advent calendars with little doors that opened for each day leading to Christmas. Then one day I stepped through one of those little doors. It was like stepping into a giant house. When I really discovered Advent, I discovered the church year and a way of walking through days and weeks of the year in the stories and songs of my fathers and mothers of the faith.

For over twenty years, I’ve been exploring old hallways, half-forgotten rooms, and pictures and poems that fill this house of memory. In fact, it might be more accurate to speak of a boat instead of a house. For the church year is like sailing around the globe each year. The tale of St. Brendan the Navigator reveals the church year through the pilgrimage of a small group of monks in search of the Holy Isle. During their seven-year journey, they celebrate the feast days on various islands. Each time they stop, they feast, worship, remember and continue their journey. Their time is shaped by the stories of Scripture and the revelation of Jesus Christ.

You might say that when we celebrate the church year, we step through the door of Advent and onto the boat with St. Brendan. I discovered Advent as a solace. As a place to face my own broken places and my own longing for the coming of the Lord. I watched and waited alongside Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and the Jews exiled to the dark land of Babylon. Their stories and longing took form in the cries of John the Baptist as he pointed toward the Coming One.

When I gaze at icons and art of the church, John the Baptist is still pointing to the Coming One. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The church year opens with a world on the verge of collapse and the judgment of God looming. In the middle of this dark scene, he points us to our glorious Lord who comes to make things right.

Each season of the year points us to stories of the faithful and unfaithful who are all in desperate need of the grace of God. The church year gave me a way to rehearse and revisit the stories of the Old and New Testament as the story of my family, our family.

Instead of always looking for the latest newest take of spiritual life and formation, we may find a joy in discovering and rediscovering some ancient thoughts on the spiritual life and formation through sermons, prayers, and lives of great men and women of faith who walked in the simple rhythms of feast and fast.

Every year, I begin the journey again. Relearning the rhythm, the dance of faith that can sing in the dark, worship in the face of calamity, and celebrate the mostly hidden gifts that overwhelm us every single day of the year. Whether you’ve walked this path your whole life or are just discovering the pattern of the church year, I invite you to walk alongside as we share stories of faith, prayers of longing and seek to keep our eyes watching as we wait for the coming of our Lord.

Image by Chris Lim (used by permission via Creative Commons).

The darkness closes in. Sadness, grief, loss, or some unspeakable sense of emptiness paralyzes. Each step feels like walking against the tide, pressing against of wall of nothingness. It seems easier to close the blinds. Turn over in bed. Lay in the dark. Continue reading

Image by Manchester Fire (used by permission via Creative Commons).

Sun and moon turned dark. Stars falling from skies. Smoke and fire in the sky. Everything is quaking.

Welcome to Advent…The beginning of the end of all things.

Advent breaks into our world like a thunderclap or a meteor crashing down from the skies and reverberating across the land. Who can sleep when the world is tumbling into cataclysm?

Advent comes like a crisis, like a wildfire, like an explosion that shatters our comfortable worlds.

The culture is filling the air with songs of holly and jolly, with heart-warming commercials of gifts given and relationships forged afresh.

The Scripture readings at the start of Advent focus on families falling apart, nations battling nations, children rising against parents. The texts look a bit closer to our present reality. In Mark 13, all that is holy has been desecrated and made desolate. The places of refuge are crumbling war zones where security is nowhere to be found. Continue reading

Here are a few Advent meditations that have blessed me. One of the earliest books I read on Advent, was a selection of poems from Ann Weems. Her conversational poems speak to our human longing and struggle to pause before the mystery of God’s coming. Alfred Delp and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermons were written from Nazi prisons and carry the weight of a soul waiting human judgment while looking for the coming of God in Christ. There are some paintings from across the ages that explore the nativity. One quick way to get started is by looking at Nativity on Wikiart (some pictures are not relevant but most are). Continue reading

For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:11–12)

On some nights, the fog of fear and doubt bewitch the mind and torment the heart. We can be trapped in a moment of anguish that feels like ages. For some people, this moment extends to days, weeks, even years. In C.S. Lewis’s novel, The Silver Chair, the prince has been bewitched by the dark Queen of the Underland. He forgets who he is and becomes her slave. When the children try to rescue him, the Queen tries to seduce them and soon they are ready to doubt the sun, the world above, and the hope beyond them. They are falling under her spell.

The constant bombardment of dark news and sad stories can quickly convince us that darkness is rising and the light is fading. Continue reading

The year begins in darkness. Long nights, short days. We gather before the dawn–in the dark of human struggles and fears and loss. What lies ahead? What obstacles may block our way? Will we lose our way in the valley of the shadow of death? Night terrors haunt our days with division and distrust all around us. The nation is shouting. Brother against brother. Fathers and sons turning apart. Our country and even our world seem doomed to repeat another year of anger and hatred; another year of striving. Continue reading