Sister Elise Saggau
This Advent and Christmas season may be unlike any other that we have ever known. We find ourselves almost ten months into the experience of a pandemic. No one living today has ever seen the likes of this. It has shone a light on human heroism and ingenuity, as well as on human ignorance, willfulness, and the illusion of control. Throughout the world, people by the thousands have died and are still dying. We the people walk in darkness—the very darkness that Isaiah spoke of in his ancient prophecy (Isaiah: 9-2). It seems as if the liturgical season of Advent was established for just such a time. During the darkest month of the year, Advent reminds us who we are and what we need. It points to the limits of our power in the face of destructive forces active in our world. It shows us that we depend upon a power greater than ourselves to walk with us through the darkness and towards a new and unimagined light. It forces us to ask of ourselves, once again: “Who are we? Why are we here? For what are we destined?” It challenges us to look at ourselves in a new way and understand that there is something more in our lives than we have yet understood. There is something more we must seek, something that is on its way to us from an unimagined future.
The four weeks of Advent remind us of the many centuries that the Hebrew people looked forward to a definitive coming of God to save them. The prophets, who had a profound understanding of God’s promised coming, were on fire with God’s messages to the people. They continuously called the people of God back to a renewed commitment to the promises of the covenant. They nurtured the peoples’ yearning for the coming of their God to save them—to save them from their enemies, to save them from deadly diseases, to save them from their own misunderstandings of who they were and what they stood for.
During Advent, the Christian church re-visits these prophets. We hear their words read in our liturgical celebrations. We recognize how these words address our own contemporary needs. We understand that these words have the power to kindle in our hearts new hopes, new understandings, new expectations. Since last year’s Advent, we have significantly changed—our world has changed. Our economy has shrunk. Our sense of security has been threatened. Our expectations have had to shift. Last December, as we prepared for Christmas, not one of us could have foreseen the future that was on its way to us and has now arrived. It is not what we expected. We understand how true it is that the future comes to us in unexpected ways— sometimes just plain pedestrian and seemingly predictable, sometimes amazing and wonderful, sometimes unwelcome and disappointing, and sometimes frightening and challenging.
This year, perhaps more than ever before, we will benefit from listening to the prophets. They encourage, admonish, warn, and comfort. They faithfully point forward to the fulfillment of God’s promise—God’s Word of salvation that will surely come to pass. They speak to us as they have in days gone by, for once again it is time to prepare God’s way. God is always on the way to us; is always coming to us, practically running, so eager to be with us, to be one with us, to share with us our joys and sorrows, our living and our dying. This Advent, let us pay attention to the prophets in our Scriptures and in our lives, as they point us toward our unimaginable future.
