The Pregnant Anticipation of Advent

Advent is a time of pregnant anticipation.  An expectant hodgepodge of excitement and anxiety, joy and danger topped with an honest awareness of the fragility of the present and hope for the fullness of God’s future.

Many Christians light candles throughout these four weeks.  The light slowly builds toward the full illumination of the Advent wreath just about the time that the world (up here in the northern hemisphere anyway) is its darkest.  More than the remembrance of the historical event of Christ’s birth, the swelling light of Advent anticipates of the fullness of God’s future, the new creation, the kingdom of heaven, Christ’s resurrection, salvation, the reconciliation of all creation to God.

Some of the many accents of Advent anticipation season God’s call of the prophet Isaiah:

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.  In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.  Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD! (Isaiah 2.1-5, NRSV)

The Advent anticipation at the heart of Isaiah’s call to be a prophet still resonates.  We still anticipate the fullness of God’s future when God “shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples” with the result being the birth of God’s peace wherein the instruments of war become instruments of well-being and peace.  For this judgement, in Christ we pray.  For this future, we wait clothed in the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13.14).

The pregnant anticipation of Advent isn’t always easy to imagine given that evidence to the contrary is so abundant and clear and often palpable.  In service of this Advent anticipation, I offer a little old song written by folk singer/songwriter Ed McCurdy and recorded by Johnny Cash and released on his final album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave.  McCurdy’s dream, reminiscent of Isaiah’s call, envisions God’s promised future, God’s Advent.  May the pregnant anticipation of Advent break into and align our world and lives with God’s future.

From the Book of Common Prayer: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.