Advent.
We’ve all been there.
Not just waiting for Christmas. Waiting for the husband, the doctor, the child. Waiting for the job offer, the acceptance letter, the validation that who you are is enough.
We look to the future with expectant hope, willing God’s plan to align with our own. But advent is more than unwrapping our wishes at the end of a season.
Advent is an arrival, but it is also a becoming. A transformation of who I am into who God means for me to be—a watching for the miracle on the horizon. Advent is preparing hearts to receive the glory of heaven.
We think of Mary, eagerly waiting to be joined to her future husband. Planning her wedding day unaware of the dramatic interruption her life is to receive.
Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you…Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. – Luke 1:28-33
Her response?
Amen. “Let it be.”
Amen
How would her virgin body carry a child? She didn’t know. Would Joseph still take her as his bride? She didn’t know. Would her family believe her story? She didn’t know.
She simply trusted, watching to see what God would do next.
Amen. “Let it be to me according to your word.”
Mary stepped into her role as mother of the Messiah with grace. She embodied advent. I doubt she felt prepared or especially equipped to raise the Son of God, but she submitted her plans to her Holy Father’s wishes and became blessed among all women.
You may feel equally ill-equipped to face the challenges ahead of you. The task may seem too big, too important to be given to someone with your personality or your limited resources. You echo Mary’s words, “how will this be?” You know intellectually that “nothing will be impossible with God” yet you know for a fact there is a whole mess of things impossible for you.
The beauty of advent is our expectation of what God will do, not His expectations placed on our already over-burdened lives. He simply invites us to journey with him in watchful joy.
The advent journey is one of miracles and majestic beings breaking into darkness with light and song. It is about beauty and love and a fierce protection of purity and humility. Advent is the amen—the exchange of your plans for God’s surprises. The relinquishing of your hesitations for God’s adventure of a lifetime. All He asks for is your hand.
“Let it be.”