The end of Advent is coming into view

The fourth week of Advent turns the story of waiting and watching for Messiah to Mary, to a familiar story that we more closely associate with the Christmas – The Annunciation.  The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary telling her that she will bear a child. 

It is a part of the Nativity story that we tend to gloss over pretty quickly. Yet, it speaks deeply to our experience as people of faith and our current circumstances. The biblical narrative moves pretty quickly from the news delivered by the angel to Mary going off to live out her pregnancy with her cousin Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptizer). Joseph and Mary pick up the story right before the birth. 

Of course, anyone who has had to be pregnant knows that it is by no means quick and easy experience. 

Years ago, as the “decline” of Christianity in North America was just starting to be noticed by church leadership, I read an article by a clergyperson trying to describe and diagnose the church’s condition. She wrote that as a church we have begun to tire and slow down, that as a body we are transforming into something we don’t recognize and it feels like we are no longer in control of what is happening to us, we are headed towards something that we know will change us forever. Some would diagnose this as the symptoms of dying. However, the author of the article noted that these are also the symptoms of pregnancy. 

I cannot help but think about the birth of my son. As I walked with my wife through her pregnancy, every step made it clear that this was a thing happening to her. There is not a lot of control over one’s body and even less help to offer as a partner beyond foot massages and late-night snack runs. But when the due date came and went, we went to the hospital for a routine ultrasound before being induced. We were planning for lunch and the movies afterward. But the doctor told us that because there wasn’t enough fluid around the baby, it was time to be admitted to the hospital. Two days earlier than we expected… at the wrong hospital… with none of the bags or supplies that we packed for the birth. What followed were 48 long hours of not knowing when and how this child would arrive. 

The pop songs and nativity scenes do not do justice to the experience of waiting for a child that is coming on its own terms. You cannot help but carry feelings of powerlessness, anxiety, worry, confusion and frustration. You know, all the feelings that go along with Christmas, right?

The story of Mary’s pregnancy, the final story of Advent isn’t the Hallmark Holiday movie that we usually imagine the Christmas story to be. Still, it is a story that speaks to our real lives more than we like to admit. 

Those feelings of powerlessness, anxiety, worry, confusion and frustration are not just reserved for the last hours of pregnancy. They are the same feelings we have been carrying for years as a church, feelings exacerbated by the pandemic and an unstable world. Yet even as we think we just might be dying, this Advent story calls us to ask the question: Is the church dying or is the church pregnant and awaiting the arrival of new life among us that will change everything?

I am pretty convinced it is the latter, and that God is about to do something new with the church. It is just that we still have to endure the hardest parts of change and transformation first – things that we have little control over and that happen to us.

But once that new thing finally makes itself known to us – it will then be clear that God is transforming us and the world with light and life.