Seasons of Anticipation

It is finals week at Seattle Pacific University, and for two hours this morning I watched as 60-plus students scribbled furiously in their blue books. The looks on their faces reflected intense concentration, mixed at times with hints of desperation. But as each student concluded his or her exam, expressions turned toward a blend of relief and exhaustion — and even a little satisfaction. Well,  unless another exam awaited.

In no small way, the students have lived this quarter (and every other quarter) in anticipation of these three days. That anticipation is far below the surface during the care-free early weeks of school, but it builds as concepts, questions, papers and projects pile atop one another. By the time finals arrive, anticipation often turns into a mix of anxiety and stress, with more than a few students saying to themselves: “I’m not sure how I am going to get through this, but somehow I will.”

So here we are, at the beginning of Advent, a different season of anticipation, a time of “expectant waiting” as we look toward our celebration of Jesus’ birth. But if I am honest with myself, all too often that sense expectant waiting is overwhelmed by a frantic scramble to take care of all the “things” that one must do pull off a “successful” Christmas. You know the routine: shopping, cleaning, decorating, entertaining — etc., etc., etc.

And at some point over the next three weeks I am all too likely to feel just like my students: “I’m not sure how I am going to get through this, but somehow I will.” With that, I will have managed to turn a time of joy into a test — except that it is self-imposed. I can’t even blame a professor.

So, my prayer for the next three weeks is that God would help me let go of all the “things” of Christmas and instead help me to wait with great expectation, to anticipate with joy the day upon which Jesus entered the world and filled our hearts with redemption and hope — anticipating anew the day in which we see Christ once more.

Advent Week Four: Anticipation

My memories of Christmas Eve all go back to a sensation, a tingling sense of anticipation, about what was to come the next morning. It always seemed to make sleep impossible and the night never-ending.

And that was just about the presents.

Beyond the gifts, my family wasn’t particularly observant about the baby Jesus, who was treated as a nice story that lingered in the background while the wrapping paper flew about the living room. And Advent? Well, that was a word I never heard at home, and I was never particularly attentive to it in my early days as a Christian.

Then I got married – to a preacher’s kid from hardy Lutheran stock and a family that lived by the church seasons. Particularly Advent.

Advent Week Four: A Moment of Beauty

Earlier this fall, at the behest of my daughter, I joined her for a concert by the David Crowder Band and three other Christian artists. Crowder was good, but the other artists really caught my attention – particularly an eclectic group called Gungor.

Michael and Lisa Gungor played a mix of guitar, bass drum, keyboards and other odd instruments – accompanied by a cellist who also was a mean beat-boxer. Their 30-minute set concluded with their signature tune, “Beautiful Things.” It’s a simple song with a simple message:

Advent Week Four: Tossed About

The rock band U2 is celebrating the 20^th anniversary of their landmark album Achtung Baby. When I first heard the album in 1991 it hit like a freight train, a jumble of new sounds and emotions that broke with all that U2 had created previously. It took a while for me to warm up to it, but now I see it as their greatest work (feel free to argue, Joshua Tree fans).

Advent Week Four: God’s Story, And Ours

Recently, I heard a theology student from Zimbabwe share a story from her childhood school days.

One day her teacher was thrilled to inform the class of a new history book – a book on African history, their history. It would be expensive, and everyone would need to contribute in order to obtain it. But despite the cost the students gladly scraped together the funds. They had never had a chance to read such a book, and they hungered to hear their own story.

Advent Week Four: Suppose We Have Only Dreamed

The season of Advent has us clinging to the promise that “the people walking in darkness will see a great light” (Isa. 9:2). But what if you’ve been in darkness so long that you can’t remember what light is like? What happens when you begin to think that darkness is all there is, that light and hope and joy are just a dream? What about when the world around us only reinforces our doubts about our faith and about the reality of the God of love coming to us in the Christ-child?  C. S. Lewis’ book The Silver Chair in his “Chronicles of Narnia” series has a wonderful allegorical answer.

Advent Week Four: Cave or Tunnel?

One my family’s regular and favorite places for a getaway is central Oregon. It’s a land of stunning beauty, shaped over millenia by volcanic activity as well as the forces of storms and erosion. One site we have visited from time to time is the Lava River Cave that is a part of the Newberry National Volcanic Monument just south of Bend. It’s a fascinating and somewhat unnerving experience to grab your lantern from the Ranger at the visitors’ center and to descend down into a tube formed after a volcanic eruption sent a stream of molten lava through a channel that later sealed over. It’s long — the tube extends almost a mile underground. It’s a bit treacherous — mostly it has a flat sandy floor, but some parts have rock formations on both the floor and ceiling that need to be navigated around. It’s cold — it stays about 42°F year-round. It’s end is unknown — a cave-in and the inflow of sand has blocked the way, but it’s thought to continue on the other side of the blockage. But most of all… It’s DARK!

Advent Week Three: Waiting on the World to Change

John Mayer’s 2006 song, “Waiting on the World to Change,” tapped into something inside people. The single reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks Chart, remaining on the chart for over a year, and has sold over 2 million in digital downloads. Mayer even won a Grammy Award for it. Why such resonance from so many people?

Advent Week Three: Slow Grandparents

Grandparents can be slow. They drive slow. They move slow. They walk slow. At least that’s the way it can seem to an eleven-year-old. But they can also teach a life-lesson on waiting in the darkness that I need to be reminded of during Advent.

Advent Week Three: In God’s Time

This Advent season I have been quietly meditating at the long timeline of life events. Anne-Marie wrote of her family waiting twelve long years for healing to come to her son’s life threatening struggle with allergies and asthma. Advent focuses on the pregnancies of two women, one of whom had waited a lifetime for a child. I understand all to well the waiting that comes in the long periods between promise and gift.