'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.

worship music does this to me

I've been thinking through a lot of heavy stuff lately. Heavy stuff like sin, guilt and shame, but also heavy stuff like forgiveness, redemption and the grace of God.

This is what I keep circling back to: we serve a good God.

He is righteous and He is just, and His righteousness and justice does not tolerate my sin. But because He is also good, He has provided a way that I can stand in His presence - His very presence! - blameless and pure in His sight, and that is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't take too long before that thought completely overpowers the heaviness of my sin, guilt, and shame. Which might be something akin to victory.

intellectual christianity

So I joined a Theology discussion group.

Which sounds really holier-than-thou but it's totally not.

Basically, it's like this: I loved my Christian Thought class in college. I learned about history, foundations, heresies, interpretations, schisms, denominations. It was more formative than any other class in shaping who I am--period--but also who I am as an intellectual Christian.

You know, intellectual Christianity: loving Christ with your head as well as your heart. (a.k.a. for the geeks out there [like me] it's not enough to serve God with a child-like faith, I want to be able to wrap my brain around it all, too.)

A year after I graduated, plus and minus a move to Africa, I found myself craving the Calvinist v. Arminian debate again, and went looking for discussion. I found it at Southland City Church's City Groups - they have an entire one dedicated to Theology.

I totally geeked out, you guys. I realized how much I wanted to engage with theology, ask big questions, search for big answers, and be humbled in that feeling-small way when I recognize how little I understand about God.

So tonight was my first night. We discussed the "birthright" the Jews have on heaven. Are they shoe-ins because they're descendants of Abraham? Have they given that up because they rejected Jesus as the Messiah?

We scoured Scripture - and I mean scoured. We pored over words and someone with the Logos software interpreted Greek and Hebrew terms. We looked at traditional interpretations and dissenters' opinions. Incredible. This is the passage I contributed to the group: Romans 11: 25-36:

Paul addresses this seemingly huge issue (which really takes up the whole of Chapter 11, for context) and breaks it down and states God's position on the issue, only to use his last breath of the chapter to acknowledge how omniscient God is. How God's judgment cannot be known by mankind. And ultimately, how the glory goes to God, regardless of the outcome.

I just want to be like Paul.

I want to have the ability and the passion and heart to discuss really hard things (like whether or not the Jews, God's people, today will inherit the kingdom of heaven promised to their father, Abraham) and I want to do it in view of my insignificance. In view of God's righteousness and in view of my inability to know how He thinks.

Essentially, Paul lays it all out there and closes with, "But I am not God." I want to be able to do that, too, in true humility.

I have a really long way to go.

And if you ever want to join me in that pursuit, the Theology group meets on Wednesdays.