Advent: longing

It has been a season for me of reflecting on the challenge of being female: about the power of women in ministry and sexism, about women's anger, abuse (especially at Michigan State), and about what leadership looks like. The reflections have brought with them my own anger at how hard it is to be female today, especially when one goes against expectations.

And so I long for a time and a world where women's gifts are valued and used and when women aren't blamed for abuse (or seen primarily as victims or sinners). Yet, as much as Advent is about longing for the world to be better, Christmas is about remembering how with Christ's coming the world is already better (and one day Christ will come back and everything will be fully right).

The longing is articulated well in recent articles that I read: Longing for All things to be made right and Rahab the Survivor.

Heather Walker Peterson in Longing for All Things highlights how through their Jesse tree, she is seeing the ancestors of Jesus in a new light. She is reminded of how Abram lies "to the Egyptian pharaoh about his wife Sarai being his sister. He was protecting his own skin but not the skin of Sarai, who was a hair’s breadth away from sexual relations with the Pharaoh. Our daughters, seven and nine, although not in complete understanding, are offended. And so am I. How had I lost the grievousness of Abram’s sin in my familiarity with the story?" In reading the story of Ruth and Boaz, she hears again "Boaz telling his male workers to keep their hands off Ruth while she was picking up the leftover grain. I’m glad for Boaz’s integrity, but I wish that the people of God who worked for him didn’t have to be told. Things are not all right."

Jennifer Lucking, in Rahab the Survivor, highlights the strength found in this ancestor of Jesus, while lamenting that her strength and desire to follow God faithfully are often left out when we talk about her:

Most of the Advent stories I’ve read about Rahab go something like this: “Rahab was a prostitute! Rahab was a liar! A harlot! But even someone as shameful and bad as Rahab is in Jesus’s lineage.”And I understand this type of storytelling: we are meant to recognize that despite our own sinfulness, despite the wrongs we do, we are redeemable and we are loved by God. Other articles I read about the women listed in the lineage of Jesus included words like sordid and notorious.. . Today I am choosing to see the resilience of Rahab the Survivor. She was proactive and went to the spies with a plan (see Joshua 2:8, 15-16). Rahab was confident and bold as she proclaimed what she knew (Joshua 2:9-11). She advocated not just for herself, but for her family (Joshua 2:12-13). She was faithful to what God was doing in her life. She is Rahab the strong. Rahab the leader.

As much as the articles point to a longing for the world to be better, they also remind me that through Christ women have been seen and given voices. And we, as Christians, have the ability to use the power of our words to tell a different story: a story that highlights that Jesus comes from a line of women of strength and perseverance who dared to risk everything for God and who cared deeply about justice.

Advent: hope

Several months ago, the Banner published an article about infertility that spoke to me, as it describes well the messiness of infertility and the messiness of hope.

They describe the challenge of not knowing, as well as the difficulties of hoping when one is continually disappointed but each month brings with it the possibility of new life:

"Every month we go through the repeated cycle of hope, then fear and disappointment. . . At times it seems easier to stop hoping than to live with the heartache of repeated disappointment. But it’s hard to know how to mourn when you don’t have definitive answers."

The author also speaks of how unhelpful many people's comments are. They "reveal an unwillingness to sit in ashes with us. This incapacity for solidarity is painfully sad and incredibly isolating for those suffering. Is it any wonder more people don’t speak up about infertility in our churches?"

Finally, the author speaks of the messiness of hope.

Someone will inevitably ask, “Aren’t you forgetting about the gospel and its offer of hope?” Eschatologically, our hope is secure—the risen Christ will return; sin, Satan, and death will be no more (Rev. 20:7-21:4). But hope—biblical hope—should lead us to be more attentive to present suffering, not less. Hope is not an opiate; rather, it keeps us crying out to God. Hope should lead us to groan laments because things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be (Rom. 8:18-27), such as the continuing mutilation of black bodies, the usury of Latino labor without providing legalized status, and, yes, even the silent suffering of infertility.

Hope is fragile, sometimes even dangerous. And yet we cannot live long without hope. 

Not yet.

Advent is the season that we await and long for the coming of the kingdom of God. For as much as Christ's first coming already brought forth the kingdom, the kingdom is not yet fully here on earth.

Without intending to, yesterday became filled with experiencing the emotions connected to the 'not yet.' Perhaps it might be better to say I was overwhelmed by the emotions related to the hard things I felt inadequate to do: hard things that were a result of sin and brokenness. Instead of recognizing my sadness and anger, I avoided reality with computer games and fighting with a program on my computer.

Yelling at God would have been better way of acknowledging my overwhelmedness and all the emotions: not because I expected to prove God wrong on any of it but because I needed to remember that God hears and cares. Crying would also have helped me, as it would have made me able to mourn the brokenness of the world and myself, as well as to mourn in response to the pain and disappointment I witnessed from those who were/are part of the community I love in Amsterdam.

When I express my lack of desire to be part of a world that is broken, including myself, I open myself up to being comforted. Last night the comfort came in having the exhausted child I love fall asleep in my arms. And it came through a conversation about a woman who insisted that Jesus' Kingdom was also for her and her daughter, now already (Mark 7).