Already and not yet
During these weeks before Christmas, our family lights candles on an Advent wreath at dinner time. As we light the candles we sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” When our son was four or five, he asked about the lyrics of that twelfth century chant and what the words meant. We didn’t even get to talking about how the Messiah would “ransom captive Israel, which mourns in lonely exile here.” We got stuck trying to explain why we were praying for Emmanuel (which means “God-with-us) to come, when Jesus had already been born.
My son was right to be confused. In this Advent season we pray for Jesus, Emmanuel, to come among us, even as we know that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger 2,000 years ago. While we trust in that birth, we still pray that Christ’s ways will be made known among us today.
We who mourn for all kinds of things long for him to come and rescue us. We need a savior from all that holds us captive, not just the ones in lonely exile, but all of us in bondage or separation from one thing or another. The full saving work of Jesus is yet to be known in the broken places of the world, even as we know that Christ is already, always, present with us.
This season invites us to this strange reality of Christ’s now and not yet promises of abundant life and freedom. We are invited to pay attention to the places in our lives and world where we long for change, for redemption, for liberation, and for healing. But it’s also a time to notice where Jesus already has shown up.
The Trappist monk and spiritual teacher Thomas Merton wrote about this strange Advent practice of waiting and watching for something which is already here.
In his 1966 book Raids on the Unspeakable, Merton wrote: “Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others for whom there is no room. His place is with those who do not belong, who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.”
As we sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” our song leads us not only into hopeful watching but also into solidarity and compassionate acts of care. As we wait this Advent, Merton reminds us that we can find Jesus in those people for whom there is no room.
-Sara Olson-Smith, associate pastor
