This is a poem that challenges us to move from waiting and hoping to embracing each other, to celebration and to action. We shall share flowers and oil even in the midst of all the old hurts, the remaining burdens of old oppressions, and in the face of uncertainty and weakness. Adventuring is about willingness to live into such a reality, trusting that this too is God's favored time, even if it does not look like our imagination. For at least ten years, Advent has been the most challenging of the Christian seasons for me. About ten yen years ago I figured out that the real spiritual challenge of Advent was to believe that things could be new, that we are not stuck in doing what we've always done and getting what we've always got.
Advent is a time for waiting, a time of darkness.
However, God does not leave us alone in such a time. We have promises and hope to shape our waiting, smells and feelings, which lure us toward what we cannot yet see. I put Isaiah's flowers and oil on the alter this morning to remind us to give thanks even while we are in the dark, even when we emerge into a newness that is not quite the shape we were hoping for, but God's favored time nonetheless. The year of Jubilee is when debts are forgiven and opportunity is restored was part of the longing for a new time when the old rules no longer bind so tightly. Such a theme is linked to the phrase, the time of God's favor.