advent is coming

 "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice.  Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.  If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. 

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins." (Psalm 130:1-8)

Advent is almost here.  On Sunday, we are all invited to embark once again on the sacred journey through the church calendar.  As you all know, Advent is the season of watching and waiting.  But if we start with watching and waiting we've missed a significant part of the process.  It goes much deeper than that, and Psalm 131 gives us a perfect example.  It is a psalm of longing, a psalm of yearning, and a psalm of expectation.  At its heart is what I've come to call the Advent Progression.  It goes something like this: mercy, wait, and hope.  Or, to use words that I have been reflecting on for the past year or so: desperation, dependence, and trust.  Or, to take it a little further: powerlessness, submission, and surrender.

We can simply start with waiting, but if we do we've started in the middle of the story.  There is no waiting without a deep recognition of our powerlessness and desperation, which is where the "cry for mercy" comes in.  That's what leads to submission.  We wait for God to speak, move, or act because we are totally dependent on him.  We can't redeem ourselves.  We can either keep trying to do so or we can totally surrender to him in trust and hope.  Thus, Advent must begin with recognizing and embracing our desperation and our powerlessness, so that we can wait for the Lord, in total submission, to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  We must submit to his will, his ways, and his plan, which involves putting our hope in him and not in ourselves, our gifts, our friends, or our circumstances.  "My Soul waits for the Lord" because it can do nothing else.  That's Advent! 

So let us begin with mercy (powerlessness).  Let mercy lead us to waiting (submission).  And let waiting lead us to putting our hope in the Lord (surrender).  For with the Lord is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption.  Thanks be to God!