Advent Meditation - Washington National Cathedral

Meditation – Prepare:

Advent is the season of expectation. The mood of Christian worship during this season invites us to patient reflection and cautious attentiveness. We hear it in the scriptures appointed for today: ‘O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence,’ Isaiah begins; ‘Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come”, Jesus counsels. Expectation. What is it that we are waiting for: Clarity? Cataclysm? Christmas? “Keep awake”, Jesus told his disciples in the midst of a teaching soaked through with anxious imagery and a dogged hopefulness. Whatever else we take from Jesus’ words, we are being invited to share the hopeful imagination of one whose words and life gesture towards the expectation of divine provision and care.

Yet in these days, we expect so much and fear so much. If only we could be offered the services of a guide to our bewilderment who could point with complete assurance in one direction, and one direction only, and say: Look, can’t you see – in that direction lies the truth, daylight and the answers to our questions. Or instead, we could seek the aid of another kind of guide altogether, one who says: “don’t expect too much out of life. Settle for what little you have and take only what is in your reach. Don’t go worrying about things like peace or joy or healing. To dream the unattainable is only to live an illusion. Be realistic: settle for small victories, partial advances and fragments of joy.” Our first guides suffers from knowing too much about the future, from ignoring or riding roughshod over the unwelcome complexities and detailed texture of life lived ‘on the ground’ within human thought and experience; while our second guide suffers from resignation that borders on despair. It may sound like common sense to only strive for the strivable; but what is the content of our expectation if what you see is all there is? It is a form of disordered pride to assume that you or I know in ways imperceptible to the character of hope, what is and is not possible under heaven.

At this season, the atmosphere created through the church’s worship focuses on the fact that Christian life is human life characterized and constituted as life lived in hope. “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” That is the hope of Isaiah. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.” This is now Jesus voices hope. Neither claim too much nor too little, neither place trust only in signs, but both look to the Father, God almighty, as the source of hope and the content of hope. The struggles and complexities of human life under heaven are not swept under the carpet or received with resignation; the boldness of trust takes account of the full breadth of human experience and the created order and comes down on the side of God and God’s provision. God does not enter the realm of humanity as a stranger – a cosmic invader – but in and through God’s creation, and in the voice and deeds of messengers, witnesses and ultimately, in the human life of the One we wait with expectation.

Reflect: what is the quality of our expectation? Where does our hope lead? What might expectation mean for you in this season of Advent?

Closing Prayer:

Almighty God,
give us wisdom to perceive you,
intellect to understand you,
diligence to seek you,
patience to wait for you,
eyes to behold you,
a heart to meditate upon you,
through the power of the Spirit
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.