All of a sudden, after a year of near biblical pestilence, horrid violence in our streets and insanity within the Body Politic, we come again to the season of Advent, when we find ourselves waiting for the birth of Jesus Christ under the bright star of Bethlehem. Let us hope that star will shine down on the woes of this unfortunate year and give us, in the miracle of the manger, a measure of peace.
I found myself recently in a hospital waiting room anxious to hear the outcome of my wife’s shoulder replacement surgery. (Before I go further, please be assured that she is doing better than expected in her fancy black sling and recuperating wonderfully.) But what happens to us when we are forced by circumstance to just sit and wait, such as this time of Advent? There in that hospital waiting room, I found myself making quiet observations about others also sitting in the waiting room. I began to wonder what their loved ones were going through and just how worried were those sitting there, socially distanced from me in their masks, waiting for their own news from the operating room. After a while of this imposed inactivity and after playing smartphone word games and checking texts and emails, I began to actually contemplate my love for this beautiful, giving and remarkable woman who was at that moment having cobalt chrome put in to replace the ball and socket of her shoulder. I began to meditate on God’s gift of my marriage. The anticipation of being in the presence of my wife again after her surgery mingled with anticipating, as ever, the gifts of my Savior’s presence in the life of my family.
And so, I waited. And in the liturgical season before us, we all wait. We wait for yet another manifestation of the presence of Christ in our hearts, in our actions, in our deepest thoughts. In an odd juxtaposition of events, we are like Joseph of Arimathea, who Mark tells us in his gospel was known as one waiting for the kingdom of God, who after the Crucifixion “gathered up courage and went in before Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” In Advent, we too are waiting for the kingdom. In our devotion and joyful expectation, we are waiting and asking for the Body of Jesus, the startlingly beautiful infant, incarnate God in the form of pure innocence.
It is not only the crucified and risen Lord I receive in the Eucharist, it is the Child who saves me over and over, the Child who picks me up out of the depths of my transgressions and confusion. I wait for that Child anxiously , as I did in the hospital waiting room for my wife to emerge from her surgery. In the wait, I am reminded of the great love I have for my wife, the mother of my children. In the waiting of the Advent season, how can we not help be reminded of the grace-filled, sweetest moment in all of human history? How can we not contemplate the love and protection afforded by the Holy Family, the example of Mary’s maternal and untainted devotion, the quiet obedience and loving arms of Joseph?
Let us look to the readings of the coming season where we are encouraged to “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:14); where “by the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). As we wait for prophetic words, we hear: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). And the prophet also lets us know: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1). From that shoot and that branch we encounter a newborn who will change the world.
And so, we wait. Amid the deceits and hypocrisies of a modern society lost in fraudulent narrative and self-aggrandizement, we wait. We light our wreaths against the darkness, we pray against the approach of godlessness, and we wait. We dispel the darkness of hatred and violence the best we can in the joyfully expectant devotions of Advent and with hearts of love. We embrace the sanctity of all human life as created in the image and likeness of God and granted us by Him. And we wait.
I am waiting for my Lord in the form of an infant starting His earthly journey of love, instruction and sacrifice. I am waiting for His goodness to reign in this fallen world. I am waiting for those I love to continually emerge from whatever infirmity or doubt or heartache they may encounter. And I am waiting, once again, for the glory and the joy surrounding the birth of the Christ Child under the bright star of Bethlehem.
Fred Gallagher is an author and editor-in-chief with Gastonia-based Good Will Publishers Inc.