Hanging on to Joyful Expectation

I remember sitting on the couch next to my grandma. She was ninety-two. I asked her, “Who would you like to see when you get to heaven?” Her eyes behind her glasses brimmed with tears. “I would like to see Bobby,” she said. Bobby was born when my mother was four years old. He died six months later. His death was a deep chasm in my grandma’s life. More than sixty years later, she had not forgotten her baby boy. She still ached to reach across that rift to touch him.

John the Baptist knows about deep valleys. The Judean wilderness is a series of parallel gorges, many more than a thousand feet deep. Some precipices are sheer rock, scary to look down.

In the first reading, Baruch also knows those scary cliffs; he prophesies that God will fill those same valleys. The Jews had sown a trail of tears on their way to exile in Babylon. Baruch reassures the captives that God will level out those rough roads and bring them back home. They’re in a bad place. What is coming? They don’t know. But their hope is in the One who can make that pathway straight. It is God who will do it. Their tears will be in the past. Joy will be their future.

My grandma died when she was ninety-four and a half. I believe that her tears of sorrow have turned into tears of joy. I hope she sees Bobby. Across the rift of death, God has healed her past and has given her a future.

In Advent, what is coming? Jesus, the baby born to be king, is coming. The chasm between heaven and earth has been leveled. That is the source of our hope. We are called to be Advent people. We hang on to joyful expectation, whether we have five or thirty or sixty more years still to come.

Consider/Discuss

• As winter deepens into darkness, the radiance of Advent still shines. The flame of the second candle on the Advent wreath flickers to tell us that the Savior is coming, coming, coming: that God’s best is yet to come. For what are you waiting in joyful hope?
• Life’s valleys can be steep. Sometimes, we may feel as though we have to cross them all by ourselves. When we hear today’s call to repentance, to make the pathways straight, it can feel heavy, as though we have to get better all by ourselves. Yet both prophets say that it is God who levels the mountains and raises the valleys. Do you walk alone? How can God’s grace lift you and help you through the course of your life?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, we bring you the chasms and the deep valleys in our lives. Sometimes it feels as though we could fall off of one of those scary cliffs. Lift us with your love. Lead us with your glory. Strengthen our courage to be Advent people, to hang on to hope—this year, next year, even if it takes sixty years. Heal our past. Give us confidence for the future. You alone are our Advent strength. O come, O come, Emmanuel!