There is something coming.

Quick, before it is too late, listen.

Do you hear the sound of the oboe? Do you hear the tuning of the violins? Do you hear the rustle of the music on the stand? The lights are dimmed, the musicians are in their chairs, all of creation holds its breath.

Listen!

Hear!

What is the song that is coming? What music will shatter this thick silence? What could break this silence?

The silence of what is.

The silence of what always has been.

The silence of need, want, cold, melancholy.

Advent is a time of anticipation. In the church, it is the beginning of a new year. Advent asks each of us, what will this year bring? What will you do now? There is a sense of futility. The resolutions and hope of last year lies shriveled in the corner. It wasn’t that we didn’t try, it is just that there was so much to do, to hold, to manage. The faith of last year has shrunk to a pebble in a pocket. Comforting, but somehow a pale remembrance of where it was picked up. Somehow, between the doing and the going and coming, the living out of the numinous vision became more of a blank stumble through the mundane. Just steering from stoplight to stoplight.

Could anything break the silence of weariness?

There were three workers, one hired in the morning, one at noon, and one as the afternoon grew to a close. As they stood in line to be paid, one leaned against the pillar, covered in the grime of a long day, too weary to make conversation. Another stood squarely on his feet, wondering how to stretch a half into a whole. The third hung back, ashamed of his clean shirt and sweatless brow. Did an hour’s wage matter enough to stand among men who had been worth hiring in the morning?

Do you know the end of this story? Could you pretend that you didn’t? What if, this year, you listened for the ending before you remembered it.

How do you wait? Exhausted and weary? Fretful and unsure? Ashamed?

Before you go, before you give up, can you wait for a little longer? Just five more minutes.
There is something coming. It is a song? Is it hope? Is it possible?

We will never know unless we stay.

We will never know unless we sing.