A Restless Silence

Jeremiah 33.14-16 Psalm 25 1 Thessalonians 3.12-4.2 Luke 21.25-28, 34-36

More than any other season during the church year, the season of Advent knows what the world is really like. Advent knows that our hearts are restless – that the anxieties and stresses of our daily lives make it hard for us to find true peace and joy. Advent acknowledges that our bodies are weak – that we so easily indulge in earthly pleasures because we think these things will make us happy or fulfilled. Advent recognizes that our souls are tired – that the quest for God and love and purpose in life is hard, sometimes too hard to continue. The season of Advent is filled with anxiety and restlessness, the very emotions that so often mark our daily journeys. Whether it’s broken relationships or failed dreams, financial challenges or physical ailments. Life is incomplete – something in us is not quite right – and our hearts are drowsy trying to figure everything out.

But it doesn’t stop there. Just as Advent recognizes the restlessness of our lives, it offers a remedy. This season gives us four weeks to prepare our hearts to welcome once more Christ, the Son of God. Four weeks to walk with John the Baptist and Mary and Elizabeth, who lived not for themselves, but only to point the way to the Messiah. Four weeks to learn once more how to love – not just the people around us, but first and foremost, God himself. Four weeks to take a step back from whatever it is that causes us anxiety and place our lives in the hands of God. If we enter into Advent with open hearts and minds and ears, then the prayers and Scripture and songs and events of these four weeks can transform our lives – they can help us make Christ the focus of all we are and all we do. These four weeks can shed light into the darkest places of our hearts – if only we will let Christ shine and get out of his way.

So how do we do this? How do we open our hearts and journey toward Christmas so that it is not just another holiday but a transforming experience? The first and most important step is silence. More than anything else during these four weeks, we are called to find and embrace silence. In silence, we learn the truth that we do not control our lives. In silence, we can surrender our goals, our dreams, and our desires to the God who made us. In silence, we can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit who gives us hope and guidance. In silence, we come to know ourselves as God knows us, and we see how much we are loved. In silence, we can have an intimate conversation with God, and the anxieties of this world can melt away. That’s what Advent is all about – making a place for God in our hearts. Waiting – watching – in silence, because it is only when we can shut out the noise of this world that we will be able to hear the still, small voice of God who casts away our anxieties and gives us peace.