Advent - Stand On Our Heads

Advent is perfect for our times.
It says, "Just wait."
Some, of course, wanted big times and fanfare.
But such was not the case.


A child, a manger, refugee status.
There's never a welcome for such love.
Such love disgusts the rich and the powerful.
The mean and the proud.


And especially the religious.
Oh, how the religious love to be religious.
They sing "Joy to the World" with tears in their eyes.
And pat themselves on the back.


They give to charity, yes they do.
And "those people" who receive the alms.
Better damn well shape up.
Or ship out.


Advent says, "Wait."
But there's a strong and strange power in:
That kind of waiting.
That kind of wanting.


Advent turns the world upside down.
And perhaps to see God a little more clearly.
We'd do well to stand on our heads.
To see what God sees.

Holy Saturday

It's Holy Saturday ... I read a book about this some years back.
Don't remember much of it, but the idea of waiting.
What will happen, if anything?

For the disciples, it was all over.
It was finished.
I mean, finished.

No one expected anything but death.
Death is like that, I guess.
It's the final word for us.

It's the final word for Jesus, too.
Tomb.
Stone.

I think It's Holy Saturday only in retrospect.
So the in-between time is hallowed.

Death holds on.
Even death is given its day.
For awhile, so the story goes.

But that's tomorrow.
Today, I'll wait.

Waiting

This morning, I read from Psalm 5 - "a Psalm of David" - and it begins like this:

1 Give ear to my words, O LORD;
give heed to my sighing.
2 Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
3 O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice;
in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.

Waiting is hard for a 6-year old on her way to Disneyland ... waiting is hard at any age.

David was waiting for deliverance ... when would God "hear" his prayers? when would there be a positive answer - deliverance from hard times?

Why would God delay?

Is there a blessing in our waiting?

A strange blessing?

If you're waiting today, know that you have an understanding friend in David.