The human ego resists change, especially as we age. “Gimme my safe rut, even if it’s miserable!” we say, defying logic. But Advent presents a different approach to change.
In Jesus’ time, the governor, tetrarch and high priest seemed like the marble pillars of society, suggesting stoic permanence. Against such stony political, military and religious might, how could a voice crying in the desert have any effect at all? Ah, stay tuned… What a topsy-turvy, crazy toppling will ensue.
Change is bound to come our way this season too—the usual routines so disrupted that some people eagerly anticipate the resumption of school and work schedules. But the two key figures of Advent, John the Baptist and Mary have no guarantees, no script foretelling the future, no promise that everything will go back to normal post-holiday.
Mary models the perfect response to God’s unexpected, even scandalous intervention in her life. When she told Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said,” she had no idea what that meant. All she’d learned was the trust handed on by her great great-grandmothers: if it comes from God’s hands, it must be perfectly tailored for me.
In times of central heating and plentiful food supplies, we no longer battle the winter as our ancestors did, finding it a precarious season to stay alive–isolated from others, running low on resources. Our great-grandparents who endured many cold, gloomy nights must’ve rejoiced at those glints of light in dark forests, when almost imperceptibly, the planet tilted towards spring, and the days became longer.
We too have reasons for despair, crippling fears, anxiety over how much we need to do before Christmas. If problems are more serious, do we run from them, or lean into them, wondering what they might teach us? Can we befriend our pain, knowing we’re more than its sting? Could we embrace for once an imperfect holiday, not scripted by Martha Stewart, but perhaps closer to the first, where an unmarried couple had to scrounge an inhospitable place to have a baby?
Kathy Coffey 