A Note from Rob ...
All About Advent
Colonel William Prescott said at the battle of Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary War, “Don’t fire until you
see the whites of their eyes.” When I think of waiting, that quote and an image of how difficult that must have been
enter my mind.
Here those men were with a horde of British soldiers at them whose sole purpose was to kill them. Yet, they
were commanded to wait, wait, wait and still wait. Life and death would depend on their courage and will power to
avoid using their limited reserves of gunpowder.
Imagine how they waited as one waiting for the command to “fire.” Now imagine how difficult it would have
been if others all around were not waiting. How difficult it would have been to keep holding fire while an enemy
marched ever increasingly closer while others under the same orders were firing at will.
In some ways, that is the dilemma we face as we enter and journey through the season of Advent. Christmas
steps closer to us with each passing day not as a menacing foe but as a welcomed celebration. It is natural to want to
hurry the celebration. But we are called to wait.
To make the difficult seem impossible, the sounds of the season are all around us. The culture is not waiting.
Shots are fired for months to capture the spoils of the season. Carols ring through the malls and Santa is seen right after
the Great Pumpkin leaves and sometimes the round orange sphere and the round red-suited one share the same stage.
Some of the holiday preparations can not wait. That is the doing part of waiting. Baking and buying, wrapping
and writing, decorating and determining how the Christmas celebrations will be done is a part of the season. We bake
the cake but we do not eat it. We buy the presents but we do not open them. We plan the trip but we do not take it.
The season of Advent is about waiting. Maybe this year we might paraphrase Colonel Prescott. What if we
don’t celebrate until we see the white of the swaddling cloths surrounding the infant Jesus?
Is there one place we might find to hold the line, so to speak: get ready, wait, prepare, anticipate, and yearn for
the coming of Jesus?
I hope to see you Sunday at the getting ready, waiting and yearning place.
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