As I write these words, advent, a season of waiting that many Christians observe leading up to Christmas, has passed. Every year, advent is marked by eager expectation, anticipation, and preparation for Christmas, the first coming of Christ. Though advent has technically ended and will not offically be back for another 11 months, Advent is far from over. The paradox of our Advent is that, in one way, what we are wating for has already come. The Kingdom of God has come. Christ is here. God is with us.
And yet, there is so much to wait for, to long for, to hope for, to pray for, to cry out for.
We cry for safe water for the people of Flint, Michigan. We long for immigrant children and parents to be reunited. We cry for children dying of thirst at the border. We hope that the innocent will be proven innocent in courts and we cry for those wrongly convicted. We weep for lack of health care that leaves people to choose between debt and medical treatment. We pray that the systemic and structural racism in our society crumbles and gives way to unity, celebration, and appreciation of languages and cultures and differences. We wait for an end to the hunger and war and violence that threatens families and communities and haunts mothers and fathers with constant fear for their children. We cry for freedom for the men, women, and children held against their wishes and exploited. We long for white supremacy to be dismantled and for the horrors of colonialism to be reversed that marginalized people groups may be honored and respected. We pray for abuse survivors to be believed and cared for instead of blamed. We wait for poverty and economic inequality to be crushed, for quality of education to not correspond with race or social class or language, for economic opportunity to extend past barriers of ethnicity, citizenship status, gender, age, relationship status, or medical diagnosis. We pray for safety and security for the single mother. We hope for dignity and opportunity for the elderly, for the immigrant, for the person whose brain or body work differently than yours does. We long for the pain and damage from centuries of racial hatred and injustice to be healed, for the evils of slavery, segregation, forced migration, and discrimination to be undone and made right. We wait for the voices of the marginalized and oppressed to be heard, to be magnified, to be valued. We pray for refugees to be welcomed, protected, and highly regarded.
And we long for Christ to return, to reign forever, to eternally triumph over all sin and injustice.
We cry for safe water for the people of Flint, Michigan. We long for immigrant children and parents to be reunited. We cry for children dying of thirst at the border. We hope that the innocent will be proven innocent in courts and we cry for those wrongly convicted. We weep for lack of health care that leaves people to choose between debt and medical treatment. We pray that the systemic and structural racism in our society crumbles and gives way to unity, celebration, and appreciation of languages and cultures and differences. We wait for an end to the hunger and war and violence that threatens families and communities and haunts mothers and fathers with constant fear for their children. We cry for freedom for the men, women, and children held against their wishes and exploited. We long for white supremacy to be dismantled and for the horrors of colonialism to be reversed that marginalized people groups may be honored and respected. We pray for abuse survivors to be believed and cared for instead of blamed. We wait for poverty and economic inequality to be crushed, for quality of education to not correspond with race or social class or language, for economic opportunity to extend past barriers of ethnicity, citizenship status, gender, age, relationship status, or medical diagnosis. We pray for safety and security for the single mother. We hope for dignity and opportunity for the elderly, for the immigrant, for the person whose brain or body work differently than yours does. We long for the pain and damage from centuries of racial hatred and injustice to be healed, for the evils of slavery, segregation, forced migration, and discrimination to be undone and made right. We wait for the voices of the marginalized and oppressed to be heard, to be magnified, to be valued. We pray for refugees to be welcomed, protected, and highly regarded.
And we long for Christ to return, to reign forever, to eternally triumph over all sin and injustice.
We aren't, of course, the first people to anticipate the Christ's coming. The Church has been in a state of Advent ever since Jesus ascended into heaven, waiting hopefully for his return. The people of Israel spent generations waiting for the Messiah, waiting for the promises that God had made to be fulfilled, and crying out, "How long, O Lord?". We join in their chorus along with our brothers and sisters in the faith across space and time, waiting, hoping, watching, preparing, expecting, singing. Christ is coming back. Our Advent is continual, but not perpetual. This waiting, it will not last forever. There is an end.
So what do we do while we wait?
Look back with me at how faithful God has been in history and in our lives and take hope. Remember God's faithfulness? Remember the way he sent his Son to sacrifice himself for us and rescue us 2000 years ago? Remember the way he interrupted your life with his unrelenting love and made you his child? Remember how his grace alone has brought you from death to life, from deserving of his eternal judgement on evil to beloved son or daughter status? This God who has been faithful before and has fulfilled promises before and has not forgotten his people before will be continue to be faithful and fulfill his promises and not forget his people. He has promised that those who hunger and thirst for justice will be satisfied. He has promised that death and mourning and crying and pain will be abolished when he returns.
The kingdom of God is both a present and a future reality. Jesus Christ both announced the kingdom's arrival and directed his disciples to pray for the kingdom to come. The kingdom arrived with the first cries of an infant King in Bethlehem under the light of a special star and to the sounds of angels rejoicing. The kingdom will be complete when this King comes back. And until then, God invites his people to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with him by feeding the hungry, by giving drink to the thirsty, by welcoming the stranger, by clothing the naked, by visiting the sick, by coming to the imprisoned. Our waiting is not passive. We wait actively as the things that we long for and cry for and pray for are the things that we sweat for.
Look back with me at how faithful God has been in history and in our lives and take hope. Remember God's faithfulness? Remember the way he sent his Son to sacrifice himself for us and rescue us 2000 years ago? Remember the way he interrupted your life with his unrelenting love and made you his child? Remember how his grace alone has brought you from death to life, from deserving of his eternal judgement on evil to beloved son or daughter status? This God who has been faithful before and has fulfilled promises before and has not forgotten his people before will be continue to be faithful and fulfill his promises and not forget his people. He has promised that those who hunger and thirst for justice will be satisfied. He has promised that death and mourning and crying and pain will be abolished when he returns.
The kingdom of God is both a present and a future reality. Jesus Christ both announced the kingdom's arrival and directed his disciples to pray for the kingdom to come. The kingdom arrived with the first cries of an infant King in Bethlehem under the light of a special star and to the sounds of angels rejoicing. The kingdom will be complete when this King comes back. And until then, God invites his people to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with him by feeding the hungry, by giving drink to the thirsty, by welcoming the stranger, by clothing the naked, by visiting the sick, by coming to the imprisoned. Our waiting is not passive. We wait actively as the things that we long for and cry for and pray for are the things that we sweat for.
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