Of Bears and Penguins

The first Sunday of Advent:

There is a line in Bob Dylan’s “Song to Woody,” that always reminds me vividly of advent - that captures so poignantly the longing and the waiting that we enter into this season:

…I wrote you a song
‘Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along.
Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn,
It looks like it’s dying an’ it’s hardly been born.

Somehow, I can imagine Simeon and Anna in the temple, waiting for the Messiah and praying the Hebrew equivalent of those lyrics. There are certainly psalms that come close to them.

While Simeon and Anna waited for the consolation, the nation of Israel endured the Roman conquest and occupation. There was poverty, corruption, illness, meanness, and all manner of other ills.

But there in the temple waited Simeon and Anna, waiting for the “consolation of Israel, for the Lord’s Christ.” Did they raise their voices with the Psalmists and say, “How long, O Lord, must we endure?”

When we find them in the gospel of Luke, we get four verbs in description. About Simeon we read that he was “waiting,” and in regards to Anna we find that she “worshipped” by “fasting and praying.”

These are fine verbs for advent, the season when we remember the coming of Christ to this world, and when we prepare our hearts in expectancy for the time when He will come again.

Wait. Worship. Fast. Pray.

These are uncomfortable verbs for me – I prefer things that have much more action or at least, busyness. Can you imagine the sisters Mary and Martha confronted with these verbs. Mary would say, “No problem, I’m on it.” Martha would probably roll her eyes at Mary, and say, “You gotta be kidding me – there’s cooking or tidying, or something I could be doing.”

Wait. Worship. Fast. Pray.

This funny world is still turning, and though Christ has begun His redeeming work, there is still so much suffering and pain all around us. Certainly there are any number of good works to be done in His name.

Still, it would be wrong to forget the lessons of Simeon and Anna, those first waiters whose story is left to us. It’s so easy to think that the work of God is dependent on our own strength, or cleverness, or wisdom, or whatever point at which our vanity deceives us into trusting in ourselves rather than God.

I look around this world and say, “Surely something more can be done,” but in saying that, I so often forget to wait, to worship, to fast, to pray. To remember that even though I can’t see it, the Almighty is yet at work redeeming and reconciling His creation to Himself.