Advent longing
2nd December 2021
We often talk about Advent as a time of waiting, but that sounds a bit passive and empty. I think that behind the Advent readings and songs and hymns there is more than just waiting – there is longing.
We look back to the longing of God’s people for a Messiah to deliver them – they have waited in darkness for so long, and now their saviour is coming.
We may or may not be excited by Christmas coming, but perhaps we may be able to sense, at the heart of everything else, a longing to welcome our saviour again, as the one born among us, God’s gift for the world.
And as we look at the world now, we long for all the promises of God’s kingdom to be fulfilled – for wrongs to be righted, the poor to be lifted up, for peace to come and for people and nations to find healing. We long to see all of that beginning now.
How long? we ask, like God’s people down the ages. Come Lord Jesus, we pray – come quickly – come and save us.
Our reading is about longing too – the longing of a people in exile – in Babylon – to come home, to come back to the land they had been promised. Isaiah passes on a message that they will come home, that the road for their return will be prepared. And at the end we hear something which speaks of another longing.
We hear that God ‘tends his flock like a shepherd, he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that are with young.’
This is God’s longing for his people, God’s longing for us – his longing to welcome us home, and bring us to himself. Just as we say to him -‘Come to save us’ so he says to us ‘Come to me – come home’.
I’m reading a book this advent with a poem by Christina Rosetti for each day. Her most famous one is ‘In the bleak midwinter’. Yesterday I read one which picks up this double longing. It’s called ‘Advent’:
‘Come,’ Thou dost say to Angels,
To blessed Spirits, ‘Come’:
‘Come,’ to the lambs of Thine own flock,
Thy little ones, ‘Come home.’
‘Come,’ from the many-mansioned house
The gracious word is sent;
‘Come,’ from the ivory palaces
Unto the Penitent.
O Lord, restore us deaf and blind,
Unclose our lips though dumb:
Then say to us, ‘I will come with speed,’
And we will answer, ‘Come.’
It makes me think of a longed for meeting between two people who care deeply about each other… the impatient waiting – the tingle of excitement and anticipation just beforehand – the leap of the heart at the first sighting – the long hug…
When we get in touch with our longing to welcome Jesus and to be with God – and when we bring this to him – then we discover the answering longing that he has for us. Perhaps we can imagine him also looking forward to our meeting and our time together with anticipation, and savouring those times, when they come, with delight – whether that is at Christmas, or in the space we make in Advent, or here as we share in this service.
We bring to Jesus our longing for his presence with us in the different parts of our lives – in all our struggles and challenges and joys.
- Come to us Lord, and we will come to you.
In this time of Advent, we open ourselves more and more deeply to the coming of the one who is born among us, and longs to be born anew into our lives.
- Come to us Lord, and we will come to you.
We look at the world with longing for new hope and new vision – and offer ourselves to be the bearers of God’s light and God’s love.
- Come to us Lord, and we will come to you.
As we share in this celebration of God’s gift of love, and in the stillness of this moment, we open ourselves to him.
- Come to us Lord, and we will come to you.