A is for Anticipation

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. (Mark 13:33)

I will be sharing reflections and my experience of the four-week Advent season as it bears us toward Christmas, one day at a time. Each entry will offer a word to carry with you, until evening comes and you lay the day to rest in God’s loving hands.

Today, the word is anticipation.

There are times it is hard to anticipate much of anything positive. Life hits hard and ‘knocks the wind out of our sails.’ We know that old saying and have felt it. You might be feeling it as this disappointing year winds to a weary close.

So many hopes we held for 2020 were dashed, even as some found fulfillment. Even more personally, as for me today, fears for loved ones we cannot help suck life from our lungs, and our hearts faint within.

But it is then, exactly then, Jesus speaks. So listen: "Do not be downcast. Lift your heart, for I will not leave you desolate. I will come and fill the hole in your heart.”

Just so, we live with anticipation, looking to the next moment and then the next and the next, for he is always coming to us. We see him in a manger; we feel him in every breath of beauty and word of grace. We know him in every silent moment when the healing balm of great love flows through our hearts, making us new.

So it is with great anticipation that we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Pr. David L. Miller