In Between

Here we are, midway into December at the end of a year that has been full of chaos and loss and grief. We are weary. We have experienced loss in unfathomable ways in the past 10 months. Our eyes have been opened in new ways to injustice and to our own mortality.

There are memes portraying 2020 as a dumpster fire. And there are 2020 bingo cards floating around cyberspace that include things like murder hornets. We laugh at the images because they are ridiculously true - and maybe because we don’t know what else to do to quiet the anxiety we are feeling.

Given all we have seen and experienced and lost this year, we feel understandable trepidation heading into the unknown future of 2021. This month feels a lot like an in-between space. We are in the middle of a massive spike in Covid19, and the vaccines are not yet widely available. People we know are dying of this awful disease, and we have no idea what 2021 holds. That is a lot to take in and process, but I will share what is helping me breathe right now.

I didn’t grow up celebrating Advent, but it has become one of my favorite parts of the year. Advent is the beginning of the church year; it begins 4 Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. It is the in-between space that marks the time connecting the coming of Messiah as a baby and the return of the triumphal Christ, when all of our broken world is redeemed. Advent is the liminal space between the already and the not-yet.

I have been digging deeper than ever before into the season of Advent this year because this “space-between” feels really relevant. God is teaching me new things as I dwell quietly in this season. Honestly, it is not a place I enjoy - this waiting space. I’ve been here before - too often in the last 3 1/2 years, honestly. But here I am again - with all of you - as we wait for what comes next.

I admit that some days, life -and the unknown future - feels unbearable.

But in Advent, I am finding moments of a quiet hope. This morning, I found it in my alone time with God. I was studying a passage in Isaiah 41, verses 6-7. Let me share it with you.

Now I am revealing new things to you. Things hidden and unknown to you Created just now, this very moment

As I meditated on these words, it struck me that God is still at work - creating new things. I sometimes think of creation as what happened in Genesis, or what happens at a birth. But God reminded me this morning that creation is still happening all around us, at this very moment.

Beloved, God isn’t finished with us or with this world. We live in an in-between space where suffering happens all around us. 2020 feels like a daily parade of brokenness. But God is still creating in this very moment, revealing new things to us as we look with weary, yet hopeful eyes.

We are a people of hope, with a God who is still creating and transforming. Keep watching and waiting. Keep looking for hope, my friends.