Expectant longing

Greetings!  I have to say, 2015 was a whole lot better than 2014 for blog entries!  I just realized there was all of 1 entry for 2014!  Ah well... I think I've lost my readership for the most part - which is ok - I find it greatly cathartic to chronicle my thoughts and ponderings where others can share in them - but most don't!  Writing into the void... :)

I'm down south right now visiting friends and family over the Christmas season.  It's been a different Christmas than usual so far, but that's been ok.  The person I normally would spend much more time with is very busy as she enters into a different and new place in life, getting to know her boyfriend's family and sharing her time with him and his side of the family.  So it's looked different for me too.  But that's been ok.  I've been blessed to have other beautiful opportunities to spend time with people over the time I've been here - and even beat my mother at tile rummy on 2 occasions!  That's a feat!

Last night was a very unexpected surprise.  I always feel I should partake in a Christmas Eve service, and I usually do with my family.  This year, my sister had her own plans, my parents decided not to go, so I didn't want to go to their church's Christmas Eve service - I find it too upbeat, so stereotypical.  The Christmas season can become stereotypical, I find.  You know what to expect.  It'll be the same songs; people are filled with "Christmas cheer".  That's not bad; in fact, it's good.  But it doesn't fill where my heart is at in that space.  As the years have passed, I have experienced a greater longing for quiet solitude, contemplative reflection, silence in these spaces.  I've been blessed with it at times in Vancouver, in particular with a church that facilitates a Maundy Thursday contemplative services before Good Friday.  So for last night, I had tried seeing if there was anything in town that was similar-ish, and hadn't found anything.  So I resigned myself to a "stereotypical Christmas eve service".  I had decided to go with a dear friend with whom I was spending time with before the service.  We would go to her church's services; a church I had attended about 6 years ago - time flies!  When I got together with her, however, she was unable to go any longer.  I debated just giving up and not going, but decided to still go after all.  I find it awkward to attend churches for which it's been a VERY long time since I've attended, for some reason.

But I went.  I knew the people sitting in front of me, so we had a neat chat.  Saw another God-moment in their lives which is beautiful.  Restoration of relationships. I love it.

And I found the service to be a balm for my soul!  Very different from most services.  A good friend of mine is part of the worship teams and was leading with the music pastor. They are a young group, and I think they feel the "stereo-typicalness" a bit as well, because while some songs were very typical, others, while the same songs we always sing at Christmas, had a different slant to them, recreated as fresh.  They also are consummate musicians, and are able to create beautiful music and harmony!  (That too, was a huge balm for my soul)  I was able to celebrate the deep profound words embedded in each piece!  It was done in semi-darkness, and we didn't stand at all, which part of my being wanted to jump up and rejoice with the words to some of the songs, but at the same time, I appreciated the sense of calm, being allowed to stay in that "place" of quiet reflection.  Parts of it were very "stereotypical".  But somehow I saw it through fresh eyes.  A woman read through the entire "Christmas story", taken from Matthew, all at once.  And it was just wonderful! To close my eyes, to picture what Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wisemen must have experienced on that night so long ago!

Both that service, and some ponderings the day before, have led me to reflect on the idea of "expectant longing", the expectant longing that was present for so many prior to Christ's birth, and the expectant longing that should characterize our lives now.

Anna and Simeon epitomize expectant longing.  In a way I will never fully understand.  Of Simeon, it  is said "He was righteous and devout, looking the restoration (consolation) of Israel".  It appears we was nearing the end of his life, and maybe for his entire life, had been waiting for this!  His heart was in such a place, that he never gave up hope!  And same of Anna the prophetess!  She had been widowed for likely upward of 60 years!  And had spent that entire time fasting and praying in the temple.  What amazing closeness and intimacy each of them must have had with the Lord!  And at least of Simeon, it is said that it had been revealed to him that he "would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ".  I can't fathom such expectant longing, such waiting!  I find I get impatient, have no sense of waiting, certainly not expectantly!

Other people as well reflect this idea of expectant longing.  Zechariah and Elizabeth, after the words spoken to him in the temple.  You wonder what those 9 months of waiting must have been like.  And even before - had Zechariah been expectantly longing for Israel's consolation even while he performed his priestly duties?  Did God choose him because of something he saw in him?  Mary and Joseph as well - their expectant longing for those 9 months of waiting for the birth of the one who was "to be great and ... called the Son of the Most High".  Mary's expectant longing throughout his childhood and early adulthood, as she waited for these things to come to pass.  The expectant longing of prophecies yet to be fullfilled: Simeon's words to her "And a sword will pierce your own soul too".

The people of Israel's expectant longing!  You see this when the wise men go to Herod, and he in turn to Israel's "chief priests and experts in the law" to tell him where the Christ was to be born.  They knew all too well where the Christ was to come from. "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no way least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler  who will shepherd my people Israel".  They had been waiting hundreds of years for this day to come!

And then us - how should expectant longing characterize our hearts now?  I recently listened to a lecture by a Dr. Walvoord.  He spoke on the rapture, and challenged his listeners that this is something that we as Christ's church need to know about and be expectantly longing for!  As a spouse longs for his/her partner when he/she is gone for a period of time, so if we love Christ, we will be longing for Christ's return - expectant longing, eagerly waiting for the restorer of our souls!

I have so much to learn about faithfulness in what it means to expectantly long and wait for something.

But I love you, Jesus, and I expectantly wait and long for your return, to join you at your side.