On Advent and Expectations

It wasn’t supposed to be this way might be the most Advent message ever. The story of Jesus’ birth is not exactly tidy or predictable. You may think it is due to the familiarity of the plot line, but I’m sure as it was happening, it was anything but.

Let’s start with the cousin of Jesus’ mother: Elizabeth. She was too old to have a baby, and when an angel popped in to the temple to announce a future son to Elizabeth’s husband, Zachariah, he didn’t believe the news. He reminded the angel about the biology of things, but Gabriel was unconcerned about what appeared possible to Zachariah. For Zachariah’s disbelief at the impossible news, the angel announced that he would be mute until after the birth of his son.

The angel made it clear that Zachariah’s prayers had been answered (I’m guessing some had been prayed decades before), and that this would come true on time —— God’s time. Whew. I have some thoughts and feelings about that kind of timing.

Isn’t it interesting that the story of Jesus’ birth starts with the story about his cousin’s birth? It’s almost like God knew that Mary would need to see other impossible news announced by an angel come true before her very eyes.

Mary, of course, was betrothed to Joseph, but not yet married when she became pregnant; in that culture, she definitely didn’t have unwed mother written into her plans. It goes without saying she also didn’t plan to give birth to a baby who would be called the Son of God. I doubt she envisioned giving birth in a stable (who does?!), and I’m certain she and Joseph never planned on getting up in the middle of the night to flee to Egypt with their infant son. I can scarcely bring myself to mention all those mothers and fathers around Bethlehem who never expected their baby boys to be murdered at Herod’s command.

This morning I read these accounts of Jesus’ birth, and the overturning of plans and expectations is what hit me, perhaps because my past two weeks haven’t gone as planned. (Or the past few years, or ten, or my entire adulthood —— dealer’s choice.) I started this brief Advent series with every intent of writing a weekly installment, but other priorities awaited me. On December 2, my oldest ended up in the hospital; we thought the issue would resolve in a few days, as it had a few months before, but we were wrong. Foiled by our expectations. When he was admitted, I definitely didn’t envision standing alone outside a Wilmington hospital a few nights later watching him be loaded into an ambulance to be transferred to a hospital in Philly.

So much of Advent is the unknowing and the unknown. About time stretching thin as taffy —— waiting long past you can wait. It’s about overturned expectations. It’s about things not being as they seem. It’s about everything that’s unlikely, and God showing up in his time, which is never our own.

It’s a hard, messy, unwieldy story full of surprises and pain. Maybe the places where God shows up in our lives look a lot like that. Is everything a hot mess? Was it not supposed to be this way?

This Advent, I hope you can hold on and remember that God doesn’t need the odds. He is unconcerned about what’s likely or what you think can or should happen. He doesn’t need your circumstances to appear to align with the plan. He shows up in the stable. Just some food for thought.