At Vespers, Tonight

We eagerly await the coing of our Savior, the Lord, Jesus Christ. He will give a new form to this lowly body of ours and remake it according to the pattern of his glorified body, by his power to subject everything to himself.

– Phillippians 3:20-21

Antiphon for Monday Vespers in the 4th week of Advent:
O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

The readings and antiphons for Vespers in the final week of Advent are especially full of hope, promise and a mystical, time-bending “gathering in.” One can almost feel the heavens bending to earth, reaching, stretching, aching to join with us, and we – who have been waiting in purple, solemn and bowed – begin to dare to look heavenward, to the stars, seeking out angels and hymns, signs and wonders.

Advent, as no other season, is the season when one feels fully the truth that God stands outside of time – that time is a construct, but nothing real – and that the Incarnation is an Eternal breakthrough between heaven and earth, between Creator and creature. A Parent possessed of a truly incomprehensible love reaches toward us with such tenderness as one cannot say.

We pray, “Come.” He says, “I am here.”

We pray, “Remain!” He says, “I have set my tent with you.”

We pray, “mercy!” He says, “I Am.”

Unconditional love, borne out in such humility – displaced, swaddled and kept in a food bin (and what food!) lived in obscurity, broken in basest humiliation and pain – this is no God who stands apart, but one who enters in unabashedly, who wallows in our humanity and then transcends it, promising the same transcendence to all of us – the ability to rise above, be renewed, be restored, be Eternal…and still, we too often stand aloof in pride, unpiercable. Perhaps God knew that only the cry of a vulnerable babe would get our attention.

There is an antiphon we read on some Mondays at Vespers, which relates a little to what we read today: God planned in the fullness of time to restore all things in Christ.

For those aching in body or mind, shattered of spirit, it is time to raise the eyes and raise the hope. Advent is the season of promise. Restoration is at hand, if you seek it.