I hate waiting. While I am (typically?) patient with people, I often curse at people in traffic, get antsy in line at the grocery store, find myself frustrated when the internet won’t load on my old computer and absolutely despise the music played over the phone while I am waiting for a representative. I am the worst with myself – I fall repeatedly into the trap of impossible standards, thinking I am not good enough unless I somehow am a hybrid of Martha Stewart and Michelle Obama. I often feel justified in my multi-tasking-email-wielding-paper-writing habits – after all, hate does in fact rhyme with wait. And that must mean something.
Except that often, the truth behind my constant irritation at waiting (and perhaps even my uncanny ability to arrive everywhere five minutes late), is because I am afraid to be left alone. That the friend will cancel our cup of coffee. That I will be forgotten. That God will not meet me where I need. Despite the record of faithfulness. No matter the signs and wonders. Waiting peaks around the bushes of busyness, giving me a wink and beckoning me to come and truly exist in the space in between. To occupy the unknown. To step out on ground I can neither see or imagine. To attempt to walk on troubled water. But I too often am scared to face the fear that inhabits the wait.
My deepest moments of frustration, of being fed up with the wait, have come at the hands of our friends. I have often cried “How long?”[1] to receive no response. Time seems to be the very source of scarcity, and I long for the fulfillment of freedom for so many in our world. It seems that in the midst of watching, waiting and praying, time all the more frivolously spirals out of my grasp. Not that I ever held it. When, again, O God, will swords finally be traded for plowshares?[2]
Advent, each and every year, reminds me that time is not my own. That God stands outside of time, authors time, moves time — all without my input. There is enough time for to find rest for our souls. There is enough time for God to wipe every tear. Mary’s “yes” to God’s time is one that resists the notions of scarcity in our life, and audaciously embraces the abundance that love offers us. Mary sings a song of praise to the Lord with the gift of expectation:
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.[3]
This unwed, teenage mother from Galilee shows us the pattern of our faith, all in the midst of the wait. Through naming the father of one’s child as God, to the hurdles of pregnancy and birth in a stable, to watching one’s very own son be crucified and suffer torture unto death, she still holds on to hope. During all of that time, she still sings of God’s mercy. Not because she saw all of the hungry filled or the humble exalted, but because she believes there is light in the midst of darkness, and chooses to herald this truth to the world. This truth that is greater than us, greater than the short span of our lives, greater than time itself. Mary can claim both the joys and the morning sickness of nine months spent in waiting. And she can claim the tears and the sorrows of three very long days, still waiting. And I think she shows us (and still claims with us!) both the celebrations and the frustrations of waiting, in our lives and in the lives of our friends.
Waiting is never something that is easy, especially when we are faced with the realities of darkness in our world. But Advent is the time to remember that, in the midst of whatever it is we are waiting for, we can take heart in the expectation. We can find rest in the preparation. We have everything we need. And we can trust that our God is, in fact, with us. Even in the most harrowing hour, there is light. That is a good news I always welcome, and that is a story forever worth the wait.