I don’t like waiting, unless I know how long I’ve got to wait.

The tradition that I came to faith in put much stress on ‘immanence’ (the word ‘immediate’ is related to it) : the Divine was close at hand and Jesus linked you to that Divine. However rocky faith becomes, I hope I’ll hold on to that although it is often hard to do so. And yet…

…what happens when things don’t happen immediately; when faith becomes hard work and you are not sure anyone or anything is there, when earnest prayers for someone to get well, for a war to end etc etc are not answered, when you don’t feel it any more? Do you just move somewhere where the crowds are bigger, the music is louder, the glee is ramped up by a factor of 10?

It’s nearly four hundred years since Pascal wrote:-

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

I think we all have that sense that when things don’t happen immediately, we want to fill the space with something, anything rather than face the emptiness of waiting.

Several years ago, I started to realise the importance of Advent: it wasn’t part of my tradition and I’m still not sure that I fully ‘get’ it. However, I find something powerful in this period that talks about waiting, of not knowing how it will all turn out and accepting that as a normal part of human experience that is not to be avoided but entered into. I also like the wild, strange passages of scripture I can’t quite understand that seem strange and sometimes terrifying. Immanence is a long way away: in fact it often feels more like absence.

I also like that I’m part of a bigger story of which I’m not likely to see the fulfilment, but the insistent cries for justice and the possibility of future hope question my actions right now: that’s not easy to take- it’s taken me a week to write even this much.

Perhaps that’s why this hymn- rendered in this version by Sufjan Stevens (part of his incredible series of Christmas albums) often moves me to tears much more than more modern and accessible songs do.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqK9sNnN7E&t=10s

I’d really like to wish you happy Christmas, but we are not there yet: have a blessed Advent instead.