While It Is Day: Advent 2021: A New Time. A New Year

 Advent 2020 was a difficult passage for me and mine (and, no doubt, for many others).  The Advent hope that in some way or another the God of history, of purpose, of Love, would break through got lost in a pandemic.  Advent hope faded for us as we dealt with my wife’s struggle with ovarian cancer.  “Life was tumbling in,” and in ways we did not choose or want. 

In that difficult time, Cherie and I found a “wee bit of Advent hope” in the Christmas carol, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear:” “And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.  O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.”  We shared this “bit of Advent hope” with family and friends in our 2020 Christmas card.

As we tried to rest beside our weary road, we talked much about the meaning of life, of our yesterdays together and of the tomorrows to come,  of love, of family, of faith, of the life everlasting. Looking back, I now realize how fortunate we were to have had the “time” to do that together.  In those precious moments, the angels were singing, though we could not always hear their song.

Advent often comes that way. God breaks through, God is with us, but we do not discern Love’s Presence in our midst.   And, that is precisely why it is so crucial to our journey to celebrate the Advent season.  Advent comes from the Latin word “advenio” which means “the beginning, or the arrival of something anticipated”.  Without anticipation we may miss what is coming, what is available, what is hoped for, what is needed.

Advent 2021 is a new time, a new year, but only if we anticipate that it will be so. Advent is a time of promise, of preparation, of new beginnings.  Advent is a time of expectancy, a time of new happenings.  Advent is a time of waiting, of moving forward.  Advent is a time for receptivity and openness, of annunciations, of searching and finding, and following a star.  Advent is anticipating that somehow or another, Christ will be born anew in me, in you, and in the world in some new way this Christmas.  The God of history, of purpose, of Love still breaks through, not in the manger of Bethlehem as of old, but in the manger of our hearts, minds and souls.  

So, today, a new time, a new year, I will light the first of the four candles on the Advent wreath in anticipation of a breakthrough.