Featured Contributor- Judy Nelson Lewis

I didn’t grow up in a tradition that honors Advent. I knew the word and the colored candles, but nothing about it stuck to my bones. And now, I love Advent. Joining the Christian calendar and pilgrims around the world in the practice of this season has given me something sturdy and spacious. I not only love Advent, but I also desperately need it. 
 
Nothing has aided my apprenticeship to Jesus like waiting. Waiting, like suffering and silence, is a topmost tool in God’s toolbox for Christlikeness. Waiting, suffering, and silence all surface as big questions. When nothing is happening, I start to wonder:

Does God see me? Does God care? Is He out to do me good? Is He out to do good to people I love? Can I trust Him? Do my desires matter?

All the big questions surfaced when we were in the waiting room. And Advent makes space for those questions. Like Holy Saturday--when we are between death and resurrection--I need the space to wrestle with the questions. I need space to grapple, to tussle in hand-to-heart combat with God. I need the space to be pinned by the questions, held, and taken down. Like Jacob, I'm willing to limp if I know that I have met with God. Advent normalizes the struggle. This is the normal Christian life.
 
Advent not only normalizes the struggle, but it also places me in a story bigger than myself. I am not alone is declaring that this world is broken and needs repair and rescue. I am not alone in declaring that I am broken and need repair and rescue. I stand with generations of people, back-to-back, in a bigger story, waiting for all sad things to become untrue. I stand in Advent, side by side with the generations, asking, “How long, Oh, Lord, how long?”
 
Advent also puts me in the company of searchers and seekers. I’m a recovering know-it-all all. (It’s not pretty. Ask my husband.) I’ve leaned on laws, formulas, and certainty as friends and security blankets. I’ve covered all my bases lest I be exposed and wanting. God does not live in-laws and formulas and cast-iron certitude. He covers me in mystery.
 
Did you notice that the magi and the shepherds were the ones invited to the manger? Pagan searchers and star seekers. Not the rule-keepers and know-it-alls. Not the Pharisees or the religious “right”. God lives in mystery, in wind, "in light inaccessible hid from our eyes."  
 
And finally, I love Advent because it reminds me of the Kingdom’s economy. When Jesus, the promise of every longing heart, finally spoke, what did the Word say? “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Some translations say, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Either way, Jesus says, "You live in an unshakeable country where I reign with justice and truth. You are perfectly safe here."
 
Then, Jesus goes on to talk about seeds and yeast. His Kingdom is like sowers and bakers, everyday people doing everyday things. Ordinary folks doing ordinary life.
 
Pastor Brian Zahnd says this: "The ways of God are predominantly small and quiet. The ways of God are about as loud as a seed falling on the ground or bread rising in an oven. The ways of God are rarely found in the shouts of the crowd; the ways of God are more often found in trickling tears and whispered prayers. We want God to do a big thing while God plans to do a small thing. We are impressed by the big and loud. God is not. We are in a hurry. God is not. We want God to act fast, but Godspeed is almost always slow.”
 
Seeds and yeast work imperceptibly, mysteriously. Instead of pondering the mystery like Mary, we’re constantly checking the plant bed and the oven, overwatering and letting the heat escape. We’re interrupting the good work with our meddling and managing. We want to dig up the seed and poke the loaf. Anything to prove that this waiting is not a waste of time. Anything to make this waiting count. Anything to keep us from being left exposed and uncovered.
 
Except in God’s economy, in the Kingdom of God, nothing is every wasted or exposed for shame's sake. There are no stillbirths in God’s Kingdom. God is always birthing something, because, as Zahnd says, “God is always loving the world.” And love is generative, procreative, living and active. “Waiting does not diminish us any more than it diminishes a pregnant woman” (Romans 8:21, The MESSAGE).
 
I love Advent. I not only love it, I need it.