ADVENT: How long, O Lord?
Twelve years ago this month I was only a few weeks away from delivering my son. I had done quite well up until then, sporting a small, neat little bump. But those last few weeks, all of a sudden it was too much. My back ached, my legs hurt, and no matter what, the baby just would not roll over into the right position. I distracted myself by continuing to work on my PhD right up until the day before I went into labour. Plodding about the corridors of the University Library seemed much better than sitting about and getting introspective. But even so I remember moments when I was suddenly overwhelmed by a mixture of fear (don’t let it happen today, God) and desperation (please let it happen today, God).
Advent begins on Sunday, and one of the themes of Advent is the expectation that God will bring new life to birth within us; that God will be born in us today as surely as Jesus was born back then. And in addition, that a greater, unimaginable birth of the reign of God will somehow break in upon the world at some future time, when the world will, at last, be bathed in God’s love and peace and justice.
Waiting for God to break in on our lives is not all joyful anticipation. Like awaiting a real birth, we long for it desperately, and fear it at the same time. Will it hurt? Will I be the same person afterwards? Will it change me? Can I bear it? What if something goes wrong?
Like awaiting a real birth, there are moments when you can’t believe it will really happen at all – it seems too different, too impossible to be real.
Like awaiting a real birth, the realisation that it will surely happen only comes gradually: from the first wondering moments, to the certainty of the condition, then waiting through the fragile weeks when you hardly dare hope because you know it might all come to nothing. And then, at the end, when it all seems too much to bear, the certainty that there’s no going back.
Like awaiting a real birth, whether you believe it or not, it will happen anyway.
“We hear the Christmas angels the great, glad tidings tell.
O, come to us, abide with us, Our Lord, Emmanuel”
(EDIT: this post first appeared a few years back, and somehow in transferring the blog to the new site it has reappeared here… knowing me I probably pressed the wrong button somewhere. But since it’s almost Advent, I’ll leave it!)
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author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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