Living in the “in between”

This has been a weird week for me.  Most years the week following Thanksgiving  we jump right into the Christmas season.  With Advent beginning this Sunday, not last, it has felt more like limbo – as if we’re in between something. So should we talk about Christmas, or not?  Should we start singing Christmas carols, or not?  Should we decorate our churches, or wait?  Even though my rule of waiting to begin celebrating the Christmas season until Thanksgiving Day held true again this year, I have been a little conflicted this week. 

It’s like living in between.

“In between” is one of the places we often find ourselves.  We can say we are “in between” decisions.  Or we can say we are “in between” relationships. Living in between isn’t always a fun place to be.  Have you ever gone to a movie and sat in between two people you didn’t know? Awkward!  Or have you ever had to ride in the back seat of a car for a long trip in between people who don’t understand the invisible line rule? Irritating!  Or have you ever gone through a painful break-up and now find yourself in the place you never wanted to be, in between relationships?  Painful.

This Sunday the season of Advent officially begins.  Advent is the time we prepare ourselves for Christ’s coming to us.  It’s celebrated the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.  We light candles, sing carols, and listen again to the Christmas story, to prepare us for the arrival of the baby.  But it’s not just about preparing to celebrate Jesus coming as a baby — a look back.  Advent also reminds us that we are to prepare ourselves because he is coming again — a look forward.  In the meantime, we again find ourselves in this state of “in between.”

There are many ways we sense what it means to be living in the “in between.”  Some are a lot less humorous than the ones I’ve mentioned.  We can feel lost, lonely, and hopeless like there is nowhere to turn.  Here is the good news for us though, Advent is a reminder that just like God came 2000+ years ago, He still comes to us.  He doesn’t leave us to figure life out alone, but comes to us right where we are.  He comes to our suffering, pain, loneliness, despair, questions, doubt, darkness, rejection, abandonment, and death.  He doesn’t run from these, but inhabits them with us.  He is a God who has come all the way to where we are so we don’t have to be alone. He replaces our despair with hope, sorrow with joy, pain with comfort, and tension with peace.  He redeems the “in-between”.  This is why we praise and adore Him, because He is Christ, the Lord.

So, as we begin our preparation for Christmas this Sunday by lighting the first candle of Advent and singing the first Christmas carols, may we know and sense that no matter what we are facing, God is with us.   He is especially with us when we find ourselves stuck in the “in-between”. 

Text for the week:  Luke 2:8-20