'tis the season

You know what feeling I love best?

Anticipation.

Unfortunately, I don't think I do anticipation very well as an adult. With children, it's easy to spot: the bright eyes, the wide smiles, the cannot-be-contained energy. They literally don't know what to do with themselves until the expected day or event arrives--and it shows.

But adults? We seem to temper ourselves. We maintain an appropriate level of excitement. The anticipation may threaten to leak out everywhere, but in general, we keep it under wraps.

However, this is the season of anticipation: Advent, in which we await the birth of Christ. I didn't grow up celebrating Advent, with the calendars or the wreaths or the candles, but discovered it in college: first, with the Book of Common Prayer in Renaissance Literature and then, at Life Church, where I began unpacking the concept of holy anticipation.

As a woman, it's especially meaningful to me that Advent begins with a woman in the most intimate moment of her life. I love the language of the Magnificat, and as gorgeous as the first line is in Latin--Magnificat: anima mea Dominum--I appreciate the simplicity of the Book of Common Prayer:

My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded : the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth : all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me : and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him : throughout all generations.

He hath shewed strength with his arm : he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel : as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

So Advent begins with the announcement of a pregnancy. (No, really.) A pregnancy that was dangerous, a pregnancy that should never have happened, an impossible pregnancy, really. Mary is so strong in her vulnerability at this moment. But if we limit Advent to the joyful anticipation of the birth of Christ, I wonder if we've missed the bigger picture:

Advent is really the anticipation of the arrival of Israel's salvation.

Perhaps we don't have a clear concept of that kind of anticipation: Waiting. Thousands of years of waiting. Patient waiting sometimes, but mostly impatient waiting. Groaning. How long, O Lord? Come quickly. Questioning. Has He forgotten us? Perhaps our God won't make good on His promise.

See, anticipation isn't just bouncing our knees, arms outstretched, smile on our face. It is that, but it is more. Advent is joyful because we know that He does arrive, and He does ransom Israel. But it's also messy. It's impatient people, unworthy of rescue, crying out to God to be saved, maybe even doubting it will happen. As the years stack up, and generations stretch out, perhaps it becomes the stuff of legends, like that story your grandpa tells you're pretty sure isn't true. It just seems so unlikely that the waiting will ever end. That God will ever remember you.

And then it happens. The promise is fulfilled.

Doesn't that make the shepherds seem so much more genuine? Imagine the young men, who doubted it would ever happen. Imagine the old men, whose hope was maybe a little more real. Imagine the small boys, who would never know the lifetime of waiting all their forefathers knew. The fulfillment was right now. It was here. It was real.

That is Advent to me. It's so much more than the excitement of pregnancy. It's the culmination of years of that quietly-whispered hope and those tender prayers. So Advent is anticipation: joyful and messy. Isn't that just the story of our whole lives?

Magnificat: anima mea Dominum.