All of us who care about issues of justice know that the world we live in is broken. Sometimes the weight of this brokenness can make it difficult to keep working for a better world. We stop waiting for justice, we stop waiting for wholeness, and we numb ourselves to experiencing the pain of all that seems so dark.
The word advent means an arrival, the arrival of a helper, a comforter, a savior, a king and a kingdom – as Sylvia Keesmat points to in the Advent of Justice, a book of meditations for the season.
Advent is a time of waiting for this arrival. The days become shorter and the darkness becomes longer and we wait for the light of the world to enter our lives through the weakness of a tiny baby, who comes to make all things new.
Waiting does not mean checking out. Waiting means that we pay attention to the brokenness we see around us and that we bear witness to suffering and injustice. We wait for the end of brokenness and suffering. While we wait, we do our part to bring forth the advent of justice in our world; we actively wait for this arrival.
But we do our part with the full knowledge that a bigger story is unfolding and we are not alone.
The work that God started from the beginning and continued with the Incarnation will come to fruition. We hold out hope that peace will come; that all will be able to live in joy and all will be comforted. God’s work is still being done and we must continue to wait for it to be completed.
We wait for the end of poverty in Canada and our world. We wait for a time of peace, when refugees will be settled and at home. We wait for the flourishing of creation and an end to environmental destruction. We wait for swords to be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, for nation to not lift destruction on another nation and an un-learning of the ways of war (Isaiah 2:4).
Waiting is not for the faint of heart and it is not to be done alone. We wait together, we work together, and we stand together for justice for all.
God became flesh in a grand gesture of accommodation to our brokenness and need: our humanity, our existence on this earth is worthy of redemption.
When life feels chaotic or despairing and we are tempted to check out, the story of the Incarnation – of God becoming human – can bring us comfort. Let us wait expectantly – and actively – for the coming of the goodness and grace of God.
