December 10thLonging to Hope
To my dear TFMC family,
You would be forgiven for feeling a bit antsy this week. Our Advent series has certainly taken its time to get to some familiar stories. And that’s been by design. Part of the season of Advent, for me at least, is trying to get us to place ourselves into the story. Rather than have Advent be a ‘Countdown to Christmas’, I want us to be able to feel the joy and celebration, not because Christmas is here, but because God has done something astonishing.
I’ve always been reluctant to jump into the gospel story in Advent, it’s far too easy to get ahead of ourselves, and I wanted us to spend some earnest time with the sense of anticipation, because that leads us into hope. It's hard to hope for something if you’re not looking forward to it; it’s hard to hope for something if it’s not something you dearly desire.
I’ve heard from a few people how appreciative they were of our time of reflection last week. Some mentioned that they appreciated having the space to be silently guided to focus on our longings. Others appreciated the room to name those and to hope for something different.
It was not laziness that we had a mostly silent sermon last week; I did that on purpose because I wanted us to connect to our desires, our longings, and I wanted us to engage with our waiting. Because we wait, but our waiting is filled with so many distractions that sometimes, we don’t actually wait because we’re so preoccupied with other things. So last week, I made us wait. I made us wait for God to speak, I made us wait to pay attention to what happens inside ourselves. I made us wait for something to break through the noise of life. I made us wait so that when we get to hope this week, we might have a sense of hope that something could actually happen.
While we’ve languished in longing and have been promised a change, the more familiar journey towards Christmas feels like it begins here, this third week, when we start to get into the gospels. And the first of our songs propels us straight into the story. It’s the first song that hints that something is happening. Mary's song is the first public declaration in the New Testament that there is hope that God’s promise will be fulfilled.
Up to this point, the movements of God and God’s Spirit are kept private between God and the people God is influencing. The annunciation is between Mary and God, Joseph’s dreams are between him and God, even God’s interaction with Zechariah is kept between him and God, more so because Zechariah is made mute until John’s birth. Mary’s Magnificat, while declared to Elizabeth, is the first public word that something big is afoot.
As we look to this song of Hope this week, I invite you to carry with you your longings, bearing them before God, with the expectation, faith and hope that God could do something.
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld