A Time of Sacred Waiting

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent

Advent – an English word that comes to us from two Latin words – “ad venire” and means “coming to” or “arrival.” Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of “Word on Fire,” an evangelical movement that breaks open the Hebrew and Christian scriptures to a modern audience. He describes Advent as a time of sacred waiting.

We have all experienced waiting. Perhaps we have waited for a bus to come to take us on our way, or, for the more modern passenger, for an Uber driver to find his or her way to our doorstep. Most of us have also experienced a waiting room. We go to see a doctor and find ourselves in a room with other people who are there to see the same doctor. We wait until someone comes to the door and calls our name. That person takes us to an office where they perform preliminary tests on our blood pressure, our heart rate, our temperature, or how well we can see the eye chart. Then they leave, and we wait again. Sometime later, the doctor finally knocks on the door and enters. The experience can sometimes take a long, long time. Nowadays, if we find ourselves in the waiting room of the emergency department of the hospital, we can wait for hours before we are seen, diagnosed, and treated. To be sure, there is nothing sacred about this kind of waiting. Bishop Barron quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald who said that the three worst things in life are to try to please and not be able, to lie in bed unable to sleep, and to wait for someone who does not come.

If you are at all familiar the Scriptures, you will recognize that they are filled stories about waiting. Noah had to wait for the waters to recede after landing atop Mount Ararat. Abraham had to wait until he was ninety years old before he would see his son Isaac born. The Hebrew people had to wait for hundreds of years before they were released from their slavery in Egypt. Jonah was swallowed by a great fish when he ran away from God’s will for him and had to wait for three days before the fish spewed him out upon the shore, only to find himself right back where he started. The prophets of Israel were constantly telling the people that the Messiah, a Savior was coming to liberate them from their enemies. They waited for thousands of years.

The very human problem about waiting is the fact that we have to let go of control over our lives. When we are waiting, someone else is in charge. A bus driver, and Uber driver, a doctor, or one’s spouse who never seems to be ready to leave when we are. No one likes to release control of their lives to another. Yet the essence of the spiritual life is exactly that – letting go of control, recognizing that God is in control.

If we are completely honest about it, we realize that spiritually speaking that deep within ourselves there is a yearning for something more. Even in the most joyful parts of our human lives, we realize that there is something far greater for which we are yearning. Nothing in this life will satisfy that yearning. One of the Psalms that we frequently pray at a funeral comes with the response, “Lord, this is the people that yearns to see your face.”

One of the most frustrating experiences that the Hebrew people had to wait through was their forty–year sojourn in the desert. Now we all know that in the Scriptures the number forty is a number that is used to simply refer to a very long time. It is used constantly in the Hebrew Scriptures and even appears frequently in the Christian Scriptures as well. One of the insights that I have had about the forty-year sojourn in the desert is that it is a apt metaphor for human life. Although our human lives are oftentimes more than forty years, like our brothers and sisters in the Book of Exodus, we are all looking for the promised land; we are waiting for the beginning of our eternal life when we will see God face-to-face. Until that time, we will constantly thirst for something more, something better, something more fulfilling.

So it is that at the beginning of our liturgical year, the church imposes a time of spiritual or sacred waiting. Each liturgical year of the church begins with this time of waiting before the Solemnity of the Nativity of Jesus. Immediately after that celebration, we make our annual trip through the life of Jesus Christ. We reflect on the Gospel stories that teach us about the person who is both human and divine. The liturgical year is a great cycle that we go through every year. This time of sacred waiting that we call Advent is like the preface to the story wherein we remember the longing of the Hebrew people for a Messiah and also contemplate the second coming of that Messiah in human history. With Isaiah we wait for the coming of the mountain of the Lord where people will live in peace with one another, laying aside the weapons of war. With St. Paul, we remember that Jesus has alerted us to remain awake so that we will be ready when he comes. This year we will be using the Gospel of St. Matthew most extensively, and today we hear him tell us that we must be prepared for Jesus who will be coming at a time that we do not know.

Unfortunately, Advent comes at the busiest seasons of the year which makes it very difficult for us to spend time with the Scriptures, to spend time in prayer, to contemplate what it means to be waiting to see God face-to-face. The Church asks us to let go of our desire to control our lives and to let God guide our feet upon the path that has been shown to us in the Scriptures. Let us all set aside time to appreciate this time of sacred waiting.

Advent – an English word that comes to us from two Latin words – “ad venire” and means “coming to” or “arrival.” Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of “Word on Fire,” an evangelical movement that breaks open the Hebrew and Christian scriptures to a modern audience. He describes Advent as a time of sacred waiting.

We have all experienced waiting. Perhaps we have waited for a bus to come to take us on our way, or, for the more modern passenger, for an Uber driver to find his or her way to our doorstep. Most of us have also experienced a waiting room. We go to see a doctor and find ourselves in a room with other people who are there to see the same doctor. We wait until someone comes to the door and calls our name. That person takes us to an office where they perform preliminary tests on our blood pressure, our heart rate, our temperature, or how well we can see the eye chart. Then they leave, and we wait again. Sometime later, the doctor finally knocks on the door and enters. The experience can sometimes take a long, long time. Nowadays, if we find ourselves in the waiting room of the emergency department of the hospital, we can wait for hours before we are seen, diagnosed, and treated. To be sure, there is nothing sacred about this kind of waiting. Bishop Barron quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald who said that the three worst things in life are to try to please and not be able, to lie in bed unable to sleep, and to wait for someone who does not come.

If you are at all familiar the Scriptures, you will recognize that they are filled stories about waiting. Noah had to wait for the waters to recede after landing atop Mount Ararat. Abraham had to wait until he was ninety years old before he would see his son Isaac born. The Hebrew people had to wait for hundreds of years before they were released from their slavery in Egypt. Jonah was swallowed by a great fish when he ran away from God’s will for him and had to wait for three days before the fish spewed him out upon the shore, only to find himself right back where he started. The prophets of Israel were constantly telling the people that the Messiah, a Savior was coming to liberate them from their enemies. They waited for thousands of years.

The very human problem about waiting is the fact that we have to let go of control over our lives. When we are waiting, someone else is in charge. A bus driver, and Uber driver, a doctor, or one’s spouse who never seems to be ready to leave when we are. No one likes to release control of their lives to another. Yet the essence of the spiritual life is exactly that – letting go of control, recognizing that God is in control.

If we are completely honest about it, we realize that spiritually speaking that deep within ourselves there is a yearning for something more. Even in the most joyful parts of our human lives, we realize that there is something far greater for which we are yearning. Nothing in this life will satisfy that yearning. One of the Psalms that we frequently pray at a funeral comes with the response, “Lord, this is the people that yearns to see your face.”

One of the most frustrating experiences that the Hebrew people had to wait through was their forty–year sojourn in the desert. Now we all know that in the Scriptures the number forty is a number that is used to simply refer to a very long time. It is used constantly in the Hebrew Scriptures and even appears frequently in the Christian Scriptures as well. One of the insights that I have had about the forty-year sojourn in the desert is that it is a apt metaphor for human life. Although our human lives are oftentimes more than forty years, like our brothers and sisters in the Book of Exodus, we are all looking for the promised land; we are waiting for the beginning of our eternal life when we will see God face-to-face. Until that time, we will constantly thirst for something more, something better, something more fulfilling.

So it is that at the beginning of our liturgical year, the church imposes a time of spiritual or sacred waiting. Each liturgical year of the church begins with this time of waiting before the Solemnity of the Nativity of Jesus. Immediately after that celebration, we make our annual trip through the life of Jesus Christ. We reflect on the Gospel stories that teach us about the person who is both human and divine. The liturgical year is a great cycle that we go through every year. This time of sacred waiting that we call Advent is like the preface to the story wherein we remember the longing of the Hebrew people for a Messiah and also contemplate the second coming of that Messiah in human history. With Isaiah we wait for the coming of the mountain of the Lord where people will live in peace with one another, laying aside the weapons of war. With St. Paul, we remember that Jesus has alerted us to remain awake so that we will be ready when he comes. This year we will be using the Gospel of St. Matthew most extensively, and today we hear him tell us that we must be prepared for Jesus who will be coming at a time that we do not know.

Unfortunately, Advent comes at the busiest seasons of the year which makes it very difficult for us to spend time with the Scriptures, to spend time in prayer, to contemplate what it means to be waiting to see God face-to-face. The Church asks us to let go of our desire to control our lives and to let God guide our feet upon the path that has been shown to us in the Scriptures. Let us all set aside time to appreciate this time of sacred waiting.