DC Liturgy: When God DOESN'T Break In

I'm sitting cross-legged on the stage in our sanctuary, wondering what I would say if we were all here together. I lit the advent candles for us.

After a season of wrestling to feel Advent, today I don't know how to feel any other way --

None

Waiting,

Desperate,
None

Anxious,

Angry.

Come LORD Jesus.

For we are well past ready.

And I know the incarnation is a miracle in it's own right -- divinity shrunk to the size of a fetus and all that -- but that is not enough for me today (forgive me if that's a shocking and unholy thing for a minister to say).

I don't want a baby God. I don't want a weak and vulnerable God. I don't want the God of mindless Christmas schlock that gets played over the loudspeakers at the mall. Not today.

I want a God who will come in power. I want a God who will rip open the heavens. A God who is going to come down here and start kicking .... well, you know ... and taking names. I don't want "little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay." I want the God in whose "name all oppression will cease."

How long, LORD?

Will you hide your face forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

And day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, LORD my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

And my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"

And my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

My heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing the LORD's praise for he has been good to me.

Psalm 13 ends with a vow to praise. The author writes that he DOES trust God. That he DOES rejoice in the gift of salvation but that he WILL sing the LORD's praise ... just not yet. Not today. Tomorrow, in trust, there will be praise. Today there is prayer. And sadness. For Advent longing remains our truth.

Come LORD Jesus.

For we are well past ready.