Waiting in Hope Like Mary at Advent

When we think of Advent­­—the season of waiting for Jesus—we often think of celebration, a growing excitement as we get closer to Christmas Day. We fill our evenings with twinkling lights, warm drinks, and holiday movies. We spend time with those we love and think of ways we can give to others.

I love all of it—all the nostalgia for the past and hope for the future. Yet sometimes, it’s hard for me to get into the holiday spirit. Sometimes the circumstances and struggles of life interrupt my joy. During times like these, I think about what it would have been like for Mary as she waited for her son, Jesus, to be born. We hear her joy and excitement early in her pregnancy:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47 NRSV).

During Advent, we want to be like Mary in the joy of her early-pregnancy song, filled with eager anticipation and praise. But surely there were other moments wherein Mary felt less joyful. Maybe some days she felt lonely or isolated, lost or confused. She definitely felt tired as her body grew with the weight of her child. She probably had moments of fear, especially when she found herself far from home, suffering the pain of labor, and unable to find a room in which to have her baby.

What most intrigues me in the Christmas story is the waiting Mary experienced, the forty weeks of anticipation.

After the fireworks story of Mary seeing an angel, who tells her she will give birth to the son of God, the Gospel of Luke skips ahead, and we only get a few details about the end of Mary’s pregnancy. Traveling. No room at the inn. A manger. A child.

But we don’t get to see much of the in-between of Mary’s experience. We have her praise song, but we don’t have her laments of morning sickness and labor pains. I think it’s safe to say that Mary had days when joy seemed far away, when the waiting may have seemed not worth it. She was only human, after all.

For some of us, the waiting of Advent might not feel like excitement or anticipation, especially this year, when we have experienced so much loss. The waiting might be filled with grief, despair, uncertainty, and dread, rather than hope. Since I moved to Michigan, the whole month of December seems like a waiting for the dark, dreary Midwestern winter to settle in.

This season, for me, has been one of many complicated emotions. Even before the pandemic spread throughout the US, I knew 2020 was going to be a year of transitions for me and my husband. The kinds of transitions that happen in life when decisions are made and the future must be considered. Add to that the layers of anxiety, stress, and grief that we have all felt this year. The most important thing I have learned is that every moment counts; every day has the possibility of new joy and new pain. I have been sitting in the waiting like we all have in our different situations. Waiting for a vaccine, waiting for our world to stop rocking, waiting for the year to end.

Christmas can be hard for any of us any year, for various reasons. We may have lost loved ones, lost relationships, lost our sense of belonging. The electric charge of holiday excitement can still hold the deep feeling of regret, the sadness of hope deferred, the pain of loss. There is room for all of this experience if we let it.

Advent seems like this to me: a space where all the complexity of humanness survives. There is room here for all of our grief and fear, all of our dread, all of our sparks of hope that we’ve been harboring in the bottoms of our hearts. We are like Mary, waiting on the fulfillment of hope in the future.

In my imagination, we are all invited to a feast to close this year together and celebrate the coming of Jesus in our lives. The table is strewn with evergreen garlands and laid with everyone’s favorite fixings, plenty of butter, mac ‘n’ cheese for the picky eaters, bread (of course), and cups that never go dry. We’d talk and catch up and share our stories, with no holding back.

And all those sparks of hope we’ve carried—maybe they could light a fire. Maybe we could scrape together our tiny bits of joy we have left and watch them grow as we share them. Maybe in the acknowledgment of our struggles, we could find respite, peace, and love.

When we think of the story of Christmas, we can remember how the greatest Love came into the world after a long wait, in the midst of trouble, in times that were dark and uncertain. We can hold close the knowledge that Mary waited through it all for the fulfillment of her hope, the joy of the world.

Cait West is a writer, reader, and publishing professional who lives with her husband in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After leaving the stay-at-home-daughter movement, she started over by studying creative writing at Michigan State University, working in education and literacy, and eventually finding her way to an editorial position in book publishing. Find her at caitwest.com and on Instagram and Twitter at @caitwestwrites.

Photograph © Fotografierende, used with permission