The Slow Way: Whole Are The Ones Who Wait – An Advent of Believing in Believing, Part 4
This Christmas, Jesus is making us whole through our longings, our longings for a world of goodness and peace, and also, our longings for things to be put right in our own lives.
Worship is kind of a wild idea, and one that shows up a lot in the Christmas story. Mary consents to mother and responds with a song of worship. Joseph listens to an angelic dream, and worships with a vow to fulfill his promise to his betrothed. The shepherds witness a sky full of song from beyond, and fall on their knees. The wise men arrive and offer gifts. Worship. Worship. Worship.
Here’s a hot take: Worship is more about telling true stories to one another about the work of God in the world and in our lives, than it is about reminding God of those things. And worship is as much about embracing our own longing as it is recognizing the desires in our lives that have already been fulfilled. In other words, the Spirit of God doesn’t need to hear all the sweet things we feel about the Almighty, as much as God needs us to hear those things from one another, in the midst of our waiting. In fact, what is praising God, if it’s not telling stories about the goodness, light and love of God in the world, and refusing to give up on hope, despite the longings we still cling to?
In the Christmas story we are being told, over and over, that the Spirit was at work in the world and still is. Honoring Christmas is worship in its truest sense, because it invites us to remind one another about what’s real. Both the peace that has come to the earth, and the desperate need—right now—for peace to become more than a vague abstraction in the very real lives of people on earth.
We worship, not by avoiding the pain and suffering in this world, not by glossing over violence, desperation, and evil with meaningless platitudes. We worship by telling each other stories, whether they’re the stories of scripture, the stories of Divine Love in song, or the stories of our lives. And in liturgical churches, we tell the same stories to each other over and over, at the same time every year. It’s an embrace of ritual, of holy rhythm. It’s speaking peace into the world, as agents of God’s love.
And of course, there’s no telling of stories in church like the way we tell the Christmas story. Our little ones dress up as the miniature first century parents of Jesus, donning robes and headscarves. We read the same passages over and over: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…” and “She…wrapped him in swaddling clothes and lay him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” We work our way through the wild reality of all those angels everywhere in this story.
But mostly, there is the candle light and the songs. So many songs that were around before we were. Songs that will remain after we’re gone. “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” “Angels We Have Heard On High,” “Joy to the World.”
We sing Gloria more often in the month of December than any other time in our year, and there’s something about the sound of it on our tongues that feels like—what is it?—nostalgia, warmth, connection?
In the Church calendar, Christmas Eve brings an end to Advent, the season of waiting. We light each candle as we move through the story, Sunday after Sunday through the season, each candle reminding us that the people of this earth, the ancestors of our faith, were longing for a savior, a rescuer. And that longing was good. Mary was longing for the end to her pregnancy, and the arrival of her child. And that longing was good. Perhaps Joseph was longing for a life that made sense, that wasn’t controlled by angelic visions, a life where he could love his wife and kid, create some beautiful carpentry. His longing was good too. What were the angels longing for? Peace on earth? Good news for all the people? The fulfillment of something divine beyond human comprehension?
In my book that releases this April, I write about the way Jesus presents longing in his poem of “blessings” in Matthew 5. I share Jonathan Pennington’s scholarship around how we interpret the word most often translated as “blessed”in the Beatitudes. And I suggest that when Jesus calls those who hear his Sermon on the Mount “blessed” in their poverty, grief, meekness, or longing for justice on the earth, he is actually calling his listeners “whole.”
In other words, Jesus is saying, “All of you who are limited by your abilities, your power, your sorrow, or even your longing for what is good and right and just, you are being made whole precisely because of those limits and longings.”
I’ve been thinking about that idea this Advent, the idea that Jesus is making us whole through our longings, our longings for a world of goodness and peace, and also, our longings for things to be put right in our own lives. Advent is the time we wait for our longings to be fulfilled. And, at the same time, Christmas is a ritual in which we reenact the story of longings being made true and real in the life of the world.
Faith is literally this kind of worship—practicing the stories of the faithful. We long for God to work in our lives, and so we practice telling each other how God worked in others’ lives. We long for a rescuer, and we practice watching that rescuer appear in the least likely way, to a blue-collared uncertain man, and his young, mysteriously pregnant fiancé.
Paul wrote to the early church in Philippians 2:12-13 to “work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” I’ve been thinking Paul could just as well have said, “work out your wholeness with fear and trembling, because God is forming our longings into something good and holy.”
“The Lord longs to be gracious to you,” Isaiah 30 says. There is that word again. That Divine Love actually has longings too, and those longings are for us, to receive graciousness, kindness. Longing and waiting always go together. The next line from Isaiah the poet says this, “Blessed are all who wait for him.”
Blessed. Whole. Flourishing.
This Christmas, however you celebrate, I hope you’ll consider your longings, and that you’ll be honest with the Mysterious Longing who orchestrated the story of the angels and the couple bringing a baby into the world near a feeding trough, and the baby who shows up to offer us the Really Real we don’t always recognize when it's in front of us. That Divine Longing is not afraid of what you wait for. In fact, God is making you more and more real, more and more whole precisely because of those longings, because of that waiting.
This Christmas, may you discover more than simple fulfillment of those longings. May you discover the presence of the goodness that is making you closer and closer—through Love—to the person you’ve always needed to be.
A Slow Practice
It might feel impossible to accomplish on Christmas, but wherever we find ourselves, let’s try to sneak away from the folks gathered with us, just for a moment, to reset, to worship. Throughout the Advent season, I’ve encouraged us to practice a five-minute centering prayer every night before bed or every early morning. Can you find a quiet space Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning to give yourself that pause?
As you sit for prayer, light a candle, and focus your attention on those two words that we’ve been reflecting on: waiting and longing. Is your longing good? How might Divine Love be working to use your longing to bring you to wholeness? When you consider your longing, what comes to mind? Perhaps longing is the word you want to focus on during this Christmas meditation. Or maybe it’s something that comes to mind when you reflect on what the main players of the Christmas story were waiting on. Maybe there’s something that comes to mind when you consider what Jesus brought then and what he is bringing now.
Imagine holding that word in your heart in the presence of the Spirit of God. When we practice centering prayer, we sit in silence, focus on breathing deeply, and whenever our mind wanders we bring it back with gentleness to the word we’ve chosen.
Set a timer for five minutes. And begin.
Breathe in: Welcome God-With-Us.
Breathe out: Bring hope to the world.
Breathe in: I invite wholeness.
Breathe out: Teach me to find you in my waiting and longing.
Breathe in: I welcome wholeness.
Breathe out: I’m making room for hope and peace.
When you’re ready to settle into your time of contemplation, use your imagination to hold your word in the center of you. Breathe deeply in the presence of God, and return to the word whenever you feel your mind drift.
When your timer goes off, you can close with this prayer:
Here I am, Lord, on this holy day, looking for what’s real. Help me find you in the waiting and the longing of the story of Christ, and the story of my own life. Amen.
A Note:
I’ll be taking a break from my this letter and The Slow Way podcast for the next two weeks. In your podcast feed, I will be posting a couple of throwbacks from this past year. Then I’ll be back with fresh Slow Way letters starting Friday, January 12. Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
Helpful. In my post-evangelical haze sometimes I feel so confused what it is to long for God. These breath prayers are a good guide.
Micha - this post was just what I needed! Spending my 1st morning off from teaching meditating on the longing and waiting period of this years advent season. You have reminded me why I need the church setting and it’s ritual and beautiful hyms at this time of year💕