Watching and Waiting
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December 3, 2017“He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the doorkeeper to be on the watch.’” (Mk 13:34)
Each has his own work. Ours is to watch at the door, waiting in silence for the darkness to be relieved by a flash of light as the door is opened.
When Jesus said: “Watch!” he wasn’t directing us to the display of Christmas lights in Times Square, to the eye-catching shop window displays, the every-repeating play of TV commercials and web advertising, or even to the giant inflatable Snoopy-dressed-as-Santa in my neighbor’s front yard. He calls us to watch not outwardly but inwardly. When we look inside, what do we see? Probably not twinkling lights and an inflatable Santa Claus.
It is not that our cultural inheritance of Christmas rituals are bad, or that the Pagan roots of many practices associated with the winter solstice demean our celebration of Christ’s birth. It is natural we should be made uncomfortable and uneasy by the coming of winter, with its growing darkness, bitter cold, the barren earth and bare trees. Throughout the centuries, people have sought solace at this time of year in rituals celebrating light, warmth, togetherness and plenty, with the evergreen tree standing as a sign of hope that not all is lost. That Christians took up such rituals and symbols to celebrate the birth of Christ is an expression of the Church’s embrace of all that is authentically human: “the joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties” of all people ( Gaudium et Spes, 1).
And yet, there is more, much more to Christmas than seeking natural comfort for natural anxiety. The time of Advent heralded by today’s gospel is set aside for looking inward and making space, preparing a way for the One who is coming. We begin not with garish lights, but with purple candles, not with tinny music, but with songs of exquisite longing, not with gifts and plenty, but with an admission of our emptiness and barrenness of heart. It is often forgotten that Advent, like Lent, is a penitential season in which we are invited to forgo indulgence in material pleasures. We choose to step away a little from the enjoyment of food and drink, possessions and entertainment so as to identify more readily the deeper needs and desires of the heart. As we have seen, the winter season is a naturally penitential one, when the earth and the trees speak of poverty, nakedness and death. In order to see the light, one has to inhabit the darkness, drink in the silence and wait, becoming more aware of an inner void which cries out to be filled.
Why is it that the empty space of waiting is so threatening that we seek to fill it with noise and activity? Perhaps it is that silence and inactivity allow the fear that is usually hidden away to surface. I am afraid, I begin to realize, of how poor and helpless I feel when not consumed by activity or numbed by entertainment. Left to myself alone, I feel acutely that I have nothing and am nothing. I have no beautiful sentiments, no profound thoughts, and everything I have achieved and the good I have done seem like “polluted rags” (Is 64:6).
“For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked…. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Rv 3:17, 20)
It is poverty of spirit that opens the door to our most eagerly-awaited guest. Therefore, we must allow ourselves to sit in darkness, feeling the heaviness of long-deferred hope and the helplessness that accompanies the realization that I cannot effect my own salvation. Before I can be ready to receive my Savior, I must learn the full extent of my need to be saved. This is what Advent can teach us.
Nevertheless, there is work to be done, there are mouths to feed, tasks to be accomplished in order to make ends meet – we can’t be forever sitting still and poking around in the inner darkness! Work is a necessary condition of our lives. It is often burdensome and distracting, perhaps especially so at this time of year. But the heart that has learned to watch and to wait, that has been educated by silence and has discovered the blessing of the poor in spirit – such a heart can find the still point in the midst of activity and even of chaos. In the hustle and bustle of daily life, a wakeful heart can hear the sound of God breathing. Let us pray for such wakeful hearts.
