Waking up in a hotel room this morning makes focus on Advent a little more challenging. I miss my front porch, sitting and sipping coffee in the chill of the morning. I miss the routine of being home and all that is familiar.

There are no decorations here. The room is the usual stark older hotel room, lacking personality. This space does not draw me in to contemplation and anticipation. It draws me in to slumber and little else.

Still. This is Advent. Here in this space. I wonder in those months leading up to Jesus’ birth what the anticipation was like. Joseph and Mary. A God in her womb. How do you even begin to anticipate that reality.

I remember each of my pregnancies, and with the first I remember a moment of near panic attack. The realization that this baby had to come out; I had to give birth and there simply was no turning back. I remember the drives to the hospital and the building anticipation of meeting this new little person. We did not know the sexes of our babies, so there was always a deep anticipation and excitement, wondering who this little one would be.

Can you imagine the anticipation of Mary? How overwhelming that must have been. She must have wondered if this baby would look different than all other babes…this little infant who carried Divinity. This little One who would change everything.

Taking today to think back on the births of my children and the emotion embedded in that experience. Thinking today of how each of those births changed our lives. Thinking today of the anticipation that marked each birth. Thinking of how amplified that must have been for Mary.

The following poem from Luci Shaw helps me. Draws me in to the fact that Jesus was in Mary’s womb for 9 months. That is something I rarely think of…I always meet Jesus right at his birth. Mary knew, though. She had that 9 months of anticipation.

Even in a sterile hotel room, the reality of God with Us can change everything.

Made flesh
After the bright beam of hot annunciation
Fused heaven with dark earth
His searing sharply-focused light
Went out for a while
Eclipsed in amniotic gloom:
His cool immensity of splendor
His universal grace
Small-folded in a warm dim
Female space—
The Word stern-sentenced to be nine months dumb—
Infinity walled in a womb
Until the next enormity—the Mighty,
After submission to a woman’s pains
Helpless on a barn-bare floor
First-tasting bitter earth.

Now, I in him surrender
To the crush and cry of birth.
Because eternity
Was closeted in time
He is my open door
To forever.
From his imprisonment my freedoms grow,
Find wings.
Part of his body, I transcend this flesh.
From his sweet silence my mouth sings.
Out of his dark I glow.
My life, as his,
Slips through death’s mesh,
Time’s bars,
Joins hands with heaven,
Speaks with stars.

Luci Shaw

Day two of Advent!

It is there, just below the surface…that little tiny bit of flame that is beginning to burn. That slight tingle in my soul. The smile that creeps up unexpectedly.

Day two. We still have 23 more days…and the beginning working of mystery is happening.

Last night driving home Maddie was on the look out for Christmas lights. Shouts of delight when she spotted some. They are not everywhere yet, and that is good…we have to hunt for them a bit.

The house is not fully decorated yet, but there is anticipation as each new decoration or light is added. My mother always said that our house came alive during the Christmas season. Everything has a shine of mystery and delight.

I know…not everything.

I know that we have an ache within us as well. I have friends who simply do not enjoy Christmas at all. And they have valid reasons to want to skip ahead to December 26th. There are those who struggle with mourning in this season, and I think of friends this year who have just lost parents. Others who have tragically lost friends and family through accidents and fires and sickness.

The mystery is not so shiny bright for them. The pain is deeper and clouds the mystery. There is so much to say about that, and as we move through Advent that will be one of the themes: Our pain and our restlessness are a vital aspect of Advent. If we were well and healthy and without need, Advent would be a fun story and a delightful season, and little else.

The reality that we are broken and rebellious and in need…that reality casts Advent in the correct light. We desperately need a savior, and the reality of the stunning way God came to us shouts that everything has changed.  Let the decorations and the twinkling lights and the songs stir our hearts. Even in our pain…we have to look and see that there is healing.

So, wherever we are in this second day of Advent…let the mystery strike. In our pain, let the whisper of hope settle in our soul. In our loneliness, let the reality of God with Us settle in our soul. In our fear, let the coming of God to rescue us settle in our soul. In our delight, let the wonder of the Incarnation overwhelm our soul.

Like Maddie on the hunt for Christmas lights as we drive…I want to be on the hunt for mystery this season. I want to pause and anticipate the arrival of the coming King. We are not trained in our culture to wait and to lean in to something that takes patience and discipline. We are not taught to seek mystery.

Let’s change that some this season. Pray. Listen. Look. Anticipate, and feel that stir within our souls.

“The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don’t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and that’s just what we cannot do with the mystery…. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.

Bonhoeffer

We made it last night. At least a little. It was not a hot chocolate bar and twinkling lights (I’m shooting for that next year!), but we read the Elf on the Shelf book and we talked about Advent. We paused, at least for a moment.

We set up the little red Christmas tree in the youngest two’s room. There were giggles and delight as they put the ornaments on and watched the tree light up the room.

Wednesdays are notoriously hectic for us. The older boys were up until ridiculous hours finishing work for their tutorial. We are always, always, surprised when we hit Wednesday and the work is not completed. Last night was not stellar. We were up quite late, although the mood was good. Still, we meet Advent morning waking before dawn and rushing out the door.

The younger ones will do some coloring with me from Ann Voskamp’s resources. We will talk about this season. The older ones will have to get caught up tomorrow. Right before we leave for the hockey tournament.

So Advent is forced to come in the midst of life. We seek that pause and that moment to wonder, but we have to find it in the midst of Chemistry assignments and Ancient History. There is something right abot that, though: the pause of Advent is accentuated by the busyness of the season.

The pause reminds us of the enormity of this coming. I love the line from John Donne: “Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.”  Sitting with that thought today, holding it near and thinking of the anticipation of the Savior come. How incredible this had to be for Mary, how beyond her imagination.

We need to hear it afresh, every year. We need to sit with the knowledge that the King of all Glory came to meet us, came to be present with us so we could know Him. So we could be known and salvation could come. 

Whatever your morning has looked like…the hectic sprint out the door, or quietly watching the day unfold…pause and think on the immensity of this wonder we celebrate.

Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;
Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

John Donne