Never Enough Time

Ready or not, here he comes

Did you do it all for Advent? Do you know anyone who did?

Have you finished every last detail for Christmas—every perfect present, every final recipe, every lingering to-do, every church rehearsal, every vacation preparation?

Or do you find yourself once again on the threshold of this holy night, shrugging and setting aside, settling in and saying that didn’t get done / bought / baked / sent / practiced / perfected, but oh well.

Ready or not, here Christ comes.

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Advent does not depend upon our ability to accomplish or our power to prove our spiritual worth.

(This can bring frustration or relief, depending where you fall this year.)

When Advent becomes a road paved with our best intentions, we may look back with regret—or look ahead with anxiety. But when we keep Christmas on the horizon not as the culmination of all our plans but the interruption of them, we have returned to the place of paradox: where God becomes human, where the Creator of the cosmos cries out as a helpless baby, where the greatest moment of history is witnessed only by a motley crew of animals and shepherds.

The pivotal parts of the Christmas story turn upon the passive voice—but this surrender, too, is powerful, summoning grace that enacts the impossible: Let it be done to me.

Not: Let me do it all.

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An honest Advent summary:

I planned to pray in the morning alone every single day. Instead I sat with a quiet candle in the dark a handful of times. 50% of those brought peaceful prayer. 50% of the time I made mental lists or got distracted by Every Other Thing I Needed To Be Doing.

The Jesse Tree spent Advent in a scattered pile on the living room floor. 

I started Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God and read 3 chapters. Of 16.

Confession: we never went to confession as a family.

But years ago I gave up Advent-As-Spiritual-Marathon. So truth be told I’m at peace. God showed up and surprised me in more ways that I could count or care to share. What more could I ask? 

These humbling seasons of preparation, Advent and Lent, always remind me it isn’t up to me. At the end I get to celebrate fully even though every attempt to prepare fell short. What more could teach me of mercy and grace?

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On one hand, there is never enough time. We could never dream to prepare for the mysteries coming our way.

On the other hand, there is always enough time. Because Christ brought its fullness, weaving the infinite into the finite, transforming the fabric of existence.

We mortals are forever trying to control kairos within chronos, wanting to wedge God’s holy time within our earthly own, wrestling the coming of God into calendar countdowns. 

But Incarnation is inbreaking, brought forth by interruptions from the God of surprises, working in ways no one expected, even the ones who kept the prophecies close for centuries.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law… (Galatians 4:4)

According to dictionary definitions, the fullness of time means eventually, finally, one day, after all. The culmination of a long series of events. It will happen if you wait long enough.

Which brings us to today, tonight, tomorrow.

He is already among us, Emmanuel, and yet we celebrate his first coming and look ahead to his second. Past, present, future.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…
He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together…
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, 
so that he might come to have first place in everything. 
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

(Colossians 1: 15, 17-19)

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If Advent feels like a quick sprint, the Christmas season itself becomes a mad dash. No sooner is the Christ Child born than we’re racing ahead at a rapid clip. He grows up overnight on the church calendar; by early January we’re already celebrating his baptism as a full-grown adult.

But imagine all the quiet growth his first days, weeks, months, and years must have held.

His first smile, laugh, word.

His first solid food, wobbly step, skinned knee.

He let himself be held, carried, fed, loved.

He learned to run, to sing, to pray.

The swaddling clothes were unswaddled, washed, and reswaddled a thousand times. The hungry baby was nursed, changed, and nursed again, night after night after night. A family is born anew when a baby arrives; parents must relearn their habits of living and laboring, too.

There’s never enough time to meditate upon the mysteries. Between any two points—mathematical or theological—exist time and space for infinite contemplation.

Yet tonight the infinite becomes incarnate. At midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. In time, of time, for all time.

Christmas will pick us up and whirl us around as it ever does; next week will stretch into that strange timelessness between holidays; by early January we’ll be sugared-out and ready for routine again.

But today, tonight, tomorrow will hold all time and transform time.

May we take a few quiet moments, even in the midnight dark, to look up at the heavens and give thanks. For that time, for this time, for all time.