Remember there's a plan

RELIGION TODAY - Published Saturday December 6th, 2008

In many churches, the four weeks before Christmas are the season of Advent.

It comes from the Latin word "Adventus" which means "coming" and it really is a season of preparation. In my church, we have blue candles and pulpit clothes which set a sombre mood -- a mood of expectation and longing.

This year that sombreness seems closer than ever; there are so many things that seem to have gone wrong with the world -- from global warming right through the economic meltdown there seems to be nothing but bad news on the horizon.

I am not sure about you; but I think I have seen more stressed out people this fall than I remember from ever before. The religious question in all this becomes "where can we find God?" and perhaps we also ask "Is there any hope in these troubled times?"

The season began some six days ago with a prophet of ancient Israel yelling to God, asking that the heavens be torn open so that God would make the earth shake. "Anything to make us believe that there is more than this!" he seemed to be asking.

That is Advent.

And we have all stood at the precipice of grief in one way or another and looked into that personal abyss. We have all had things happen to us that make us question -- question the goodness of the world, question our values, question God.

We have all had to begin again; and we begin with expectancy.

I love the stories of Advent. Of Gabriel whispering in Mary's ear, silently changing Joseph's mind. The visit of Mary with her cousin Elizabeth; a story which to anyone who has ever seen a pregnant woman rings so true to life, as they are overjoyed with their expectation. Even John the Baptist with his rough camel skin clothing odd dietary practices brings something interesting to the table.

All of these characters remind us that the time is not now. They are all looking to the future. Joseph and Mary are starting a family, Mary and Elizabeth are giving birth, and John is making the rough places smooth. In each story, we are asked to imagine ourselves looking around at what we see, and knowing that God has something else in store.

So what does God have in store for us? I am certainly not the type of person who believes that God controls the outcome of every roll of the die, at the same time, I believe in divine purpose. Which is to say the universe is unfolding "for" something; there is a plan of sorts; just not one that says that God pre-ordained there to be snow this Christmas.

What I mean by plan is more like this: spring is supposed to follow winter. That is the way it was designed. The universe and all the characters that fret and strut their way across its stage are supposed to be living in peace and harmony and love. It is just the natural order of things.
The fact that there seems to be a lot more stress than love right now is a pretty good indication that we are living in the "not yet." We are living in the season of Advent.

We are not waiting to be rescued, or at least we shouldn't be. We are not waiting for that one way ticket to heaven; because there are no guarantees. We are waiting to be reminded.

In a few different ways, the Bible says that Jesus came into the world to remind us of God. Another way we can say this is that Jesus came to remind us about love. Not romantic love, but true, deep down, heartfelt compassion. The kind of love we figure would be behind making the world such a beautiful place.

We tell the story of that love being born into the world in an unexpected way; as the son of a young girl and a carpenter in a stable in an out of the way desert province of the Roman Empire. We aren't waiting for that to happen again. But we should be on the lookout for an even more unexpected way that love becomes the centre of our world. God will remind us, somehow, somewhere, during this season; what it is to be human.

That is worth waiting for.