Advent Word: Unexpected

Advent begins today. It's a season of waiting, of expectancy, of hope.

That raise the question what do you expect as you wait in hope?

One thing I expect is to follow the themes of #AdventWord through Advent which this year is only 24 days. Advent always has 4 Sundays before Christmas. It always starts on a Sunday. That is why in the church the 1st day of Advent varies between the end of November and beginning of December.

For the last 2 years I have tried to post something each day that connects with the word of the day suggested by #AdventWord. I expect to manage that again this year, but life is full of unexpected events and my plan may have to be abandoned.

Today's Advent word in the global Advent calendar I'm following is 'unexpected'. When I saw that word I immediately thought of Mary's unexpected pregnancy announced to her by an unexpected angel. Or the unexpected pregnancy of her post-menopausal cousin Elizabeth. Were they ready for that?

Rowan Williams wrote a lovely poem called Advent Calendar. It is about the unexpectedness of the ways God comes to save. Yes, indeed, God is a God of surprises, who unexpectedly comes as a vulnerable baby.

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.

He will come like child.

© Rowan Williams, Published in 'The Poems of Rowan Williams' (Oxford 2002 and Grand Rapids MI 2004)

Image Credit: Pixabay: CCO License