For a study guide see page 25. To read “Searching for shelter,” find this article at
www.thelutheran.org/feature/december.
time to come to fullness. We learn to take time. And in taking time, we anticipate the reward and relish with joy the fruits of our waiting. Waiting helps us enjoy what finally arrives and that which we otherwise might take for granted. Te cake in the oven needs time to be fully baked.
Ten it will taste good. Te poem, aſter a period of mulling, incubation and corrections, finally emerges on the paper in full bloom. Over time, the grapes are transformed into fine wine. A big chunk of one’s spiritual life is learning to have
confidence in the darkness of winter, in times when things look bleak, to know that there is something out of our sight that is coming into being. Advent is one time in the year when the church says, “Waiting may be difficult, but we have to wait, so let’s wait together.” And so, in the darkest time of the year, we wait with
longing for the slow return of light. As the culture rushes Christmas, the Christian is
invited to be countercultural. Te outer world is whip- ping itself into a buying frenzy, decoration overload, and a season of budget strain, parties and anxiety in what society now calls the “holiday season” (that began, somehow, in October).
Don’t be cheated It’s hard work swimming against that cultural tide. But if we don’t, we are cheated of a season we need: Advent. And without patience, we lose Christmas as well. We are accompanied through the dark days of
Advent by the gospel reminders of Christ’s coming in time and coming again at the end of time. Like the family counting the trimesters of a baby on
the way, we count the days with the Advent calendar. We weave the fragrant branches of evergreen onto a hoop, and it’s more than just a decoration. It’s an archetype: When the far north ancients watched the waning of
SHUTTERSTOCK Waiting is hard, and it’s not the great American pas-
time. We spend time, we lose time. We waste time. And when we suddenly have time, we don’t know what to do with it. Advent comes and gently invites us Christians into
a period of waiting. It actually teaches us the art of waiting—and the joy of preparation and anticipation. Advent invites us to be spiritually pregnant with all the hopes for which we long. In Advent we learn that everything of value needs
days, they took in their harvest, brought their animals to shelter and then removed the wheels from their carts. Out in the snowy forest, one tree seemed to remain green, alive and hopeful. Tey collected and wove those branches around their wheels and fashioned torches to these wreaths. In their great halls, they hung the wheels from the raſters and, lighting one torch at a time, they danced and sang and told their stories. Tey lent each other courage in the darkness as they
wooed back the sun, the source of light and life. And it worked! What a relief. Slowly the sun returned and the light grew.
20 December 2014 19
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