Light Advent Musings

Week 1

Waiting for Something to Happen

The early 1980s Masterpiece Theatre classic The Jewel in the Crown is one of my favorite series and one I recommend to those I know also enjoy good British television.  Having recommended it to several people considerably younger than myself, I've gotten the same reaction from them – "It was hard to get into at first because the story moved so slowly.  But I stuck with it and it was really great!"  I was somewhat mystified at their critique, not having noticed the slowness of the plot.  Then I realized these younger viewers were of the Downton Abbey generation, used to their episodic dramas is short, quick scenes.  Take a stop watch to any contemporary Masterpiece (I've done it to both DA and Poldark.) and one will find the average scene length to be under 20 seconds, the "long" dramatic scenes clocking in at just under two minutes.  Taking a stop watch to The Jewel in the Crown, the short scenes average just under a minute, the long dramatic ones can clock in at close to five minutes.  Clearly, the pace of British drama has significantly changed in forty years.

Advent, that time of waiting for Christmas, also has a different time element to it, depending upon our age and experience.  As children, the weeks before Christmas slow to a snail's pace as we wait for Christmas morning.  As an adult, those same weeks fly by with not enough days to get everything done in a timely matter before the big day. Children eagerly anticipate the action of Christmas while adults are fine with a slower rhythm leading up to December 25th.  One can only imagine the time flow of the true Advent, the centuries of waiting from the biblical fall of man to the coming of a God-promised Savior.  

That Savior-promise comes on the heels of Adam and Eve's sin and, interestingly, the promise is addressed to the serpent, Adam and Eve being eavesdroppers as God voices His plan of salvation. 

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.*

Hmmm...a battle between the serpent's offspring and the offspring of a couple yet to have children.  The waiting game had begun.  And the Offspring of the couple will step on the serpent's head, a decided position of power, and yet one without complete invulnerability.  There will be a bruising of His heel.  We can only wonder at what Adam and Eve thought of this promise, of the nature of its fulfillment, of the timing of its completion.  Did they suspect it would happen soon, or did they hunker down for the long haul?  Did they hope for the non-stop action pace of Downton Abbey or resign themselves for the slow unfolding pace of The Jewel in the Crown? 

Depending upon how much science and archaeology one factors into the biblical account of Adam and Eve's leaving the Garden of Eden, the waiting time for the coming Savior is somewhere between 4,000 and 200,000 years.  That's a long, long time, especially compared to the Church calendar's traditional four weeks of Advent.  It makes us wonder about the God who promised the Savior.  We know He is a God of infinite patience, with perfect timing, attributes we, His creation, have only in part, lacking in both infiniteness and perfection. We may struggle with the pacing of The Jewel in the Crown. He would not.  But, like The Jewel in the Crown, if we stick with God's timing and pacing of His salvation story, we come away knowing we have seen something really great...

Something to Ponder:

Take a look at 2 Peter 3:8,9:

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Try to wrap your head around God's concept of time and how it is so different from ours.  Examine your own concept of time.  Do you like things to progress slowly, unfolding at a leisurely pace, or are you addicted to action, things always moving along?

Something to Pray: 

Pray through your reflections from above.  Ask God to align your sense of timing with His, to slow you down when you are going ahead of Him, to light a fire under you when you are lagging behind.  Ask Him to show you ways in which His timing has been perfect in past interactions in your life.  Ask Him to increase your trust in His timing and pacing for your present or future life.

 

*Genesis 3:15