Advent: Awaiting the Child

Guest Writer Isabel Anders

Anders: Advent, Awaiting the Child

“Isabel Anders wrote these Advent meditations while waiting for her first baby to be born. I read them in my husband’s hospital room, watching him die. Now, another Advent approaches, another time when birth and death draw close together, and it is not always possible to tell which is which.

As we move into Advent, we are called to listen, something we seldom take time to do in this frenetic world of over-activity. But waiting for birth, waiting for death—these are listening times when the normal distractions of life have lost their power to take us away from God’s call to center in Christ.”—Madeleine L’Engle.

John the Baptist represents the call to radical preparation of one’s whole life for the coming of the kingdom. His is an extreme message, and his story ends with an early death. Yet while he lived, he praised the Lord with his whole being, habits, reputation, and life—for all it was worth. He focused on the Old Testament prophets’ messages, like Isaiah, and validated the hope expressed so long ago. A way, a path to God, would be prepared. A voice cries, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a pathway for our God” (Is. 40: 3).

The call to repentance must always precede praise. Acknowledging sin clears the way for the truth of God’s deliverance, for the Messiah to come into his own. And praise naturally follows the revelation of truth. John was the last forerunner of the Lord, a close earthly relation of Jesus. As a baby, he had leaped in his mother Elizabeth’s womb at the announcement that Christ would be born into the world, a foreshadowing of his prophetic mission to praise and acknowledge Messiah with his whole being.

The connection between repentance and praise that the Baptist exemplifies is fitting in Advent, helping us hold the tension between joy-in-waiting and joy-set-loose. …

In Advent, we talk of preparing and waiting; therefore, it would be almost impossible to avoid mentioning what we are waiting for and why. Yet our emphasis on repentance, intermingled with praise, sometimes gives our songs a minor key. These days, we must consider our condition and dare to think, “What if he had not come?” Our redemption hangs in the balance, and “all lies in a passion of patience” as we wait.

We pray that he will come to our hearts, as he did in the lives of those faithful believers: Mary, John, Anna, Simeon, and Elizabeth. Acknowledging our unworthiness yet acceptance of the gift—two distinct actions—are inseparable in us as in those saints. Like their hope, our belief is part of the ongoing story of redemption. We are brought into line with the whole event through repentance and praise. —From Awaiting the Child: An Advent Journal by Isabel Anders (Cowley: 1987, 2005).

Isabel Anders

Joanna   joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Jesus: Light and Waiting in Advent

Jesus: Light and Waiting in Advent

“I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” — John 8:12.

Holman Hunt Light of the World

Nestled away in the side chapel of Keble College, Oxford, is this haunting painting, “The Light of the World,” by Holman Hunt. I stumbled upon it on an adventure walk at Oxford one summer, when we spent two weeks at nearby Wadham College. I was mesmerized by it and sat and visited it almost every afternoon. Hunt painted it in 1854 and sold it to Thomas Combe, who, on his death, willed it to Keble College. When Hunt heard Keble charged admission to see it almost fifty years later, he painted another picture four times larger, understanding that it would be considered a “sermon in a frame.” The larger work went on an international evangelism tour, where hundreds became believers.

When I discovered he donated this larger version to St. Paul’s Cathedral, I knew we needed to return to London to see it behind the altar in the North Transept, Middlesex Chapel. This version is just as haunting, but it is much harder to meditate on the painting with the crowds in that more extensive setting. I was almost always alone at the chapel at Keble.

I sometimes go to Pierce Chapel at Trinity Cathedral in Little Rock, where this painting is in one of the stained glass windows.

This is just a reminder of how art, even one painting, can make a difference in the world.

The figure of Christ and his searching eyes stands with a lantern on the other side of a door overgrown with dead weeds and rotten fruit on the ground. This speaks volumes about our relationship with Christ more than most theological writings. Christ has been there for some time. No matter where we stand or sit in connection to the painting, Christ’s eyes look directly at us. The door opens from the inside. Christ is not banging on the door, but persistently and gently knocking.

I give copies of this image to spiritual friends, especially when they feel God’s absence.
God is there waiting.
Advent reminds us that we are not only waiting for God, but God also waits for us.

Joanna  https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Advent 1

 Advent 1

Guest Writer Karen Dubert

“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness,

and put on the armour of light,

now in the time of this mortal life

in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility.”—Book of Common Prayer, Collect p. 211.

Advent One

Give us grace to cast away

the things designed to lead astray,

the things that of necessity

distract our hearts most easily,

grace to loosen and release

what makes us yearn to live at ease:

the thoughts which thoughtless hearts beset

and lead down paths of word-regret.

To cast away the works of dark

that damage soul and dim the spark

of Image faint we should reflect;

instead we manage to connect

and cling to comfort, rights and will:

ragged blankets to cover self,

words and phrases all designed

to justify “what’s mine is mine”.

I read these words on Advent One

and passed them blithely over.

What works of darkness have I done?

this prayer is for the other.

But later in the afternoon

a different light shone through them.

grace to cast away gives room

and space to welcome heaven.

Karen Dubert

Joanna Seibert.   joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/