Let the Waiting Begin

First Sunday of Advent.

A season of anticipation.

Of waiting.

A season that a mother can relate to on so many levels. Whether waiting for an adopted baby to be placed in her arms, a biological child to be born, or to officially enter the life of her stepchild, the suspense weighs on her. It grows. It drags out. It maddens.

So much change to come: A new person. A new life.

If anyone can come close to understanding the idea behind Advent, it's a mom.

We mothers understand it in our bones. We know what it's like to be a new person ourselves and to hold a new person. We understand new life on multiple levels.

Sometimes the rituals we do around Advent seem a little affected and forced. We light a candle on our Advent wreath and talk about the light to come into the world. We listen to parts of Handel's "Messiah." We talk about waiting and try to help the children make some connection between their anticipation of Christmas and people who were waiting for Jesus to come into the world.

But the idea behind it is powerful. All of Israel awaited Messiah. The suspense grew and dragged out for centuries. It may have weighed on some, maddened others. But they believed that with the Messiah would come change. A new people. A new life.

Then Jesus arrived--such a different arrival than the one expected for Messiah. Many still wait, not believing He was--is--the One. But those who did believe Jesus to be the Messiah experienced so much change. They became new people. They got new lives for old.

This is what it's all about. Today, we can become new people. We can have new lives for old.

So we go ahead and light the candles, even if it's a bit affected. We go ahead and read the passages from Isaiah and John. We go ahead and talk about waiting. And when the candlelight flickers and the kids stare at the light, who cares if they understand it all? In the hushed silence--interrupted and punctuated with odd questions from the youngest two--they get a feel for something...something big. Something worth waiting for.

In the darkness, a line of dark smoke rising above the single flame, the children get a hint of it, of what's real and true.

Of Who it is that's worth waiting for.