The other day we were delighted by Jamie Smith’s honest appraisal of the moment: “I’m ready to be done with Ordinary Time.” Yes, we echo his sentiment, we too are up to our eyeballs in ordinariness. As far as we can tell, Ordinary season is the church in daily grind. The leg work. It is a place where the word is fleshed out and all that theoretical glory learns to make small, unattractive sacrifices called “kingdom.” For that reason, it is a tired and haggard–but faithful–people of God whose frames will be bent toward Advent. Perhaps it is also a desperate people. Those of us who have snooped around long enough, read too many Gawker reports, or just have a general sense within ourselves that things aren’t good yet, you know, ordinary-wise. We are not comprehending solitary confinement, civil war, and storms unprecedented as ordinary. The spirit is willing—and given—so why is “the flesh is weak” so often convention?
Are you okay with this state of normal, God?
There is a dinner party happening somewhere, and a woman is resting her hand on the leg of her husband. It remains there easily, like a peace that has become routine. Elsewhere, a mother and son sit on a couch together, her arm draped around his shoulder. This son was away for several years, and his company, now a natural as day, still floods her with gladness. To touch the beloved, to be at rest in the presence of the beloved, such is the ordinary of God with his Christ (Ps 80:17).
In Advent we boldly ask for the ordinary of God. By longing for the season of longing, as it were, we assert that to hope for Christ is to have him in some sense.
We also confess:
When I wait for your Son
but grow guilty, tired, bored, and too easily distracted
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
When I don’t receive your light
because I don’t believe the news is really that good;
When I don’t believe the promise that I am completely holy in Christ alone
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
When it’s been too long since I’ve felt your presence
and I’m unable to conjure hope;
When my heart feels like a dead stump
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
When I want to want you, but I don’t;
When I want to believe, but you must help my unbelief
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
When I really need a miracle this year
and I’m told to expect you will come this Advent
but instead I hear a voice saying,
“You will only be let down”
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
When you looked down from heaven
and saw no one understood
that there was no one good, not even one
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
When you had no home, no place for your Spirit to rest
until you sent one who pleased you,
a river whose streams made you glad
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
the son of man you have raised up for yourself
Come, Lord Christ!
