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When I was a teenager, my father and I, along with my best friend and his father, went on a fishing trip to southeastern Kansas. This was not your typical touristy fishing destination, but to my friend’s family farm. Like most fishing trips I have been on, the fishing part was not all that successful, but the time with friends and family was something I would never forget.
One night, we were out walking on the old gravel roads around the farm when I could see off in the distance the glow from car headlights. I warned our group that we should probably get to the side of the road because there was clearly a car coming our way. Not moving to the side, my friend’s father asked me, “How far away do you think those headlights are?” To which the only response I had was, “I have no idea, but they are clearly coming this way.” He said, “Yes they are, but they won’t be here for another fifteen minutes or so.” You see because this remote area was so flat, treeless, and dark – just like most people think of when they think of Kansas – the lights of a car could be seen for miles! Yes, it was coming toward us, but it was still a long way off and might never come. Either way we had a long wait before we needed to do anything to prepare for the coming car!
Advent is a season in which we are told to wait and to prepare for something that is up ahead, something that is coming our way. On one level, the four Sundays of Advent provide a countdown to the celebration of Christmas, but Advent is much more than that. Advent is also a way of looking ahead toward the coming of Christ in the eschaton. We are to look forward to “that great and glorious day that SOON will be here!” Yet, as we wait, it can feel that the great light at the end of the road is too far away for us to have to do anything to prepare for it now.
But, the invite of Advent is not just to get out of the way because something is coming. The invite of Advent is to get on the way! We are invited to wait in a way that does not only remind us that the light of the world will return and lead us home, but to begin to reflect that light in the world around us now. A church that does its Advent journey well, resets itself into the story of Jesus and becomes a signpost on the journey for others. If we are waiting well, we are living as Christ invites us to live. If we are waiting well, we are showing people what this coming Kingdom will look like. If we are waiting well, we are not worried about how long it is going to take, but we are living the values of justice, love and peace that are characteristic of that coming Kingdom now!
Jesus often said, “the Kingdom of God is at hand” or “the Kingdom of God is within you.” If that is true, then we are not just looking at a light off in the distance, but we are living that light in the world now as we wait for that light to come in full. We are not just continuing to walk the road as we were before, but we are walking in a way that transforms the world around us. Sure, that day might be a long way off, but let’s live in that light of that day now as we wait!
