“And after those days, Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, became pregnant. And for five months, she hid from everyone, saying, ‘The Holy One has done this for me in these days in which he saw me, took away my disgrace among my people'” (Luke 1.24-25).
Advent, the tradition goes, is a season of waiting. We are waiting for the cry of a child in the manger. We are waiting for Christ to come anew into our lives. And we are waiting for the moment when all things are made new.
Waiting, to me, implies a patient or, at least, a semi-patient state. Standing in a long line at the store (back when it was safe to do such things) causes us to wait. We may shift from foot to foot, wanting to be on our way, but we don’t rush ahead. We hold our place and await our turn.
The waiting of advent is likened to a woman pregnant with child, patiently ticking off the days for the moment when new life enters the world. It’s why we are often invited to wait with Mary.
But what if we, instead, were longing along with Elizabeth.
Luke tells us Elizabeth and her husband were advanced in their years. They could have been as young as their late forties or maybe even nearing sixty. They were not old in our sense of the word, but they had watched many years pass where their dream of having a child faded and faded.
So, when Elizabeth becomes pregnant, she doesn’t run out into the neighborhood to tell everyone the good news. No, she tucks herself away in her house, staying in seclusion for five months. Luke offers us no reason for this, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I wonder if she was so overcome with longing for this child she could not bear to face anyone.
Longing is a deep desire for someone or something. For me, it’s a deeper form of waiting. It is when our soul has an object for its waiting.
Think of it, after all those years of fading hopes, Elizabeth had someone who embodied them. Inside of her a child was growing, someone that, ’til now, she’d only seen in dreams. How great do you think was her longing to see and to hold this person? Wouldn’t it be something more than a patient waiting? Wouldn’t she see every day as one drawing this child, her son closer?
In Advent, we are not waiting upon a concept or an idea. We are waiting for a person, for the person—for Jesus. A person we, like a woman with child, have never seen, but whom we have already come to love.
What if, in this season, we focused less on waiting and more on longing? What if, as we light candles each night, we saw them, felt them drawing the One closer? What if, in just a couple of weeks, we were to see the face which, ’til now, we’ve only seen in dreams?
Thank you! I love this!