Advent: If It Doesn't Happen Now--It Didn't Happen Then...

 I like the way Eugene Peterson speaks of Mary's annunciation in The Message: "You're beautiful with God's beauty. Beautiful inside and out!" We have to hear that before we can hear God say anything else. God loves us for what we are, who we are, and where we are. Don't ever doubt that!

Advent is about preparing, waiting, hoping, expecting, and praying that somehow God will come in some new way, not just to us personally, but to all people everywhere.  It is a time to look for a burning bush in the desert of life, for a pillar of cloud in the day, a pillar of fire in the darkness, a dream, or perhaps an annunciation.  Because God came once upon a time must mean that God can and will come now.  But how, when, where?  Will I be able to discern that coming?  Will I have eyes to see, ears to hear, mind to receive, and the sense to perceive such a coming?   How is God going to come this Advent?  How will Christ be born anew in me, in you, and in the world this Christmas?

Will some Gabriel come with an annunciation?  Does God have some special message for us?  Will we hear it  as Mary did or dream a dream as Joseph did?  Why not?  If it happened then it can happen now.   Now don’t get all disturbed, I doubt that God is going to announce that you are pregnant with child.  But God might very well announce that you are pregnant with love and that you have some special loving to do.  God might say you are pregnant with a word of hope you need to deliver to someone who is in doubt, pain, or crippled by difficulty.  God might say to me, “Hal, at 78-years-old, I’m not done with you.  I want your life to be wider and deeper than it is now.  I want you to see more, to learn more, to be more.  You have yet to become all that I mean for you to be.”  If it doesn’t happen now—it didn’t happen then!

Do you expect anything new to happen within you this Advent?  Do you anticipate God coming to you with an annunciation?  We’ve made the annunciations in the Christmas story so spiritual, religious, other-worldly, and angelic that most think it only happened then and will never happen again. If you don’t expect it to happen, don’t worry, it won’t happen.  Expect to hear, expect to dream some special dream—and maybe, just maybe—you will.  If it doesn’t happen now—it didn’t happen then!