While Waiting in the Dark

Advent is a time of immense waiting. We wait for what we cannot yet see. It is growing…coming to be, but we wait in the darkness of unknowing. The liturgy gives us a woman during this season to teach us how to trust that something is going to emerge from the darkness. The darkness is going to give way to the light. We can learn much from Mary during this Advent time, especially because the present darkness around us is so intense.

The woman is aware that her very being is shaping something, yet the design is being woven by an unseen hand. Her humanness is providing the ‘stuff,’ the DNA, the cells, the tissue, the bone, but she does not see what it is becoming. But SomeOne else has the plan. She assists the plan. She eats, sleeps, speaks, and waits.

It sounds like us, the Church, doesn’t it. We so long for all the bickering to stop. We long for the corruption to end. We want the immigrants to find a home. We want the wars to cease for lack of interest. Yet all the while our longing is weaving something. Our desires strain to be realized and like the woman, we sense that SomeOne has a plan for what shall be. Advent is our time of longing for what grows in us, among us, from us. Advent is our time to assist…it is the time of active waiting. We too will eat, sleep, and wait. We will listen to the news…watching for signs of hope, signs of what is coming to be in the dark.

And just as sure as that newness will emerge from Mary’s longing, so will the reign of God emerge from the darkness of our Advent longing. We do not know what it shall look like…we only know that its coming is as sure as that birth. We assist. We do the ordinary things with extraordinary active love, and in due time, it comes. It comes from the time of our active waiting in the fertile dark of our faith.

Come, Lord Jesus…Do not delay.

From our longing and our tears,

Weave the flesh of our peace.

Build the blocks of unity from our differences.

Shape us into a people after your own heart.

Teach us, Weaver of plans, how to assist you.

Be it done unto us according to your Word

As we wait in the dark.

When All is Said and Done…

November brings us into the close of the liturgical year and the end of Ordinary Time. The Church, in her wisdom, has been instructing us on how to be a disciple in light of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ dying and rising is ever before her eyes, and ours too.

The rhythm of our lives flows from struggle and pain to joy and celebration. No one is excepted, be they believer or non-believer. The difference is that believers and disciples have a clue as to why life is that way. It was that way for the One who came to be with us and who loves us so. Our faith in him shows us how to ‘hang on.’ The ‘seat belt’ that keeps us secure in this roller coaster of life is his gift of Easter peace. He has us tight and safe…we need not fear, though the storm rages around us and in us.

The readings explore this wild ride coming to an end. They reveal the final victory of his Kingship. He is the king who suffers with us and brings us through the storm.

 Servant King,

Your arms are stretched out wide…

No one is excluded from your wide embrace.

 There is room for the most wretched,

the most abandoned, the most hopeless.

Is there room for me?

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Your heart is open,

like a window without shutters,

Catherine says…

Where I can climb in and hide safely anytime.

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Your hands are wounded…so are mine.

I’ve used them to grasp, to hold with tightened fists.

Gently pry open my clenched fists

and kiss them…

So I grasp and hold on to nothing but yourself.

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Your feet are wounded…so are mine.

They’ve taken me to places you would not go.

They’ve taken me far from you,

Until I felt lost and alone.

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Your head so wounded, pierced and aching,

has plans for me…and in your will is my peace.

Kerygmatic Preaching in Song

 Sometimes sung theology can be an example of Kerygmatic preaching. This earliest form of preaching, before theology was developed, was centered on a relationship with Christ Jesus, the Incarnate Word, as the core of Christian identity:

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
 For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me.
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand:
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Getty and Townsend