Here is the 3rd of 4 reflections that I wrote for the NRUC Advent reflection booklet. With luck I'll put the 4th one up tomorrow before the jolly fat man leaves the North Pole.....
Text: ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me.’ (Luke 1:38)
Advent is the season of waiting expectantly for the birth of Christ. However, often waiting is often tinged with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what might happen. Fear of change. Even waiting for events which should be joyous can have an element of apprehension: will things be as wonderful as we expect them to be?
Imagine then how it must have been to be a pregnant, unwed mother in first century Palestine. A social outcast in fear of her life unless she could wed: fast.
And yet Mary had heard the word of God: a promise about who the child she was carrying would grow up to be. Despite her desperate situation Mary was prepared to trust the Lord that all would be well: that her situation would bring about good.
Henri Nouwen in The Path of Waiting puts it like this: ‘To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is trusting that something will happen to us that is far beyond our imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God moulds us according to God’s love and not according to our fear.’
As we wait in expectantly for the Christ Child this advent season may we wait on God to change our lives in joyful anticipation of what may happen if we let God define our life.
Prayer: “Lord, help me to put aside my fears of the future and wait expectantly, trustingly on your spirit to change and renew my life this advent season.”
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