Advent: The Waiting Time

In the waiting time,
between the panicked first knowing
and the finish of it,
is a strangeness, a tensile calm.
Inward turned and closed as a child
curled against a dream, the unfinished heart
feels the coming dawn it has not known,
awaits in silence that which has not been,
and all unknowing,
wills it.

Two thousand years ago, an unmarried teenager said yes to God when the Angel told her she would become pregnant with God's own son (Luke 1:26-38). Was it in part for her own protection that she ran immediately to her middle-aged cousin Elizabeth and stayed for 3 months (Luke 1:39-56)?

When the man she was promised to heard the details, Joseph also said yes to God, and committed to raise God's son as his own (Matthew 1:17-25).

Two thousand years later, Mary's news is more urgently needed than ever: Good News to all the world, an event that shakes the universe to its core. In Advent, we remember the fear and uncertainty even as we sing "Come oh Come Emmanuel"


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Poem: "Advent" by Tina Howard
Painting "The Annunciation" by Henry Ossawa Tanner