Growing up, of course, I thought of Advent in terms of counting down until Christmas. We would get out the advent calendar with its twenty-four little wooden figures, and mark the days as we got closer and closer to the main event. The box marked 24 was always the largest, and the most important, and from the minute we opened it on Christmas Eve morning the anticipation just accelerated until Christmas Eve dinner with the family and then, finally, waking up on Christmas morning to begin the ritual of stockings, then kringle, then… presents! I once wrote myself a note saying “It’s Christmas!” and put it in the bars of my canopy bed over my head, so that it would be the first thing I saw when I woke up and I wouldn’t lose a second of knowing it was that special day.

Now, of course I still love the counting-down aspect of Advent, the focusing on what is to come; the number of days has just become somewhat more flexible. I am counting down with a cheap advent calendar with unpalatable chocolate, but the little images in each window of airplanes and ornaments remind me that I am marking the days until I fly home to my family and to the world of Christmas as we practice it on the 21st. I may even have to open doors 22, 23, and 24 in advance, before I leave Boston. And I sent my long-distance boyfriend a calendar as well, to count down the days not only until Christmas but, by implication, until we get to see each other again on the 27th.

But I no longer just love Advent for what happens when it is over. I have come to love it as a celebration of waiting itself, an honoring of the time-before-the-happening. This time of year is by its nature a time of waiting and uncertainty and always has been: once the last harvest is in, wondering whether stores will last until the spring, and as the sun sets earlier and earlier in the day, waiting for the night to slowly begin to shorten again. Personally, the last few wintry weeks have been difficult for me as my emotional energy flags and as I struggle to stay engaged in my schoolwork at a time when professional competence and rewards feel very far in the future. I am also struggling with uncertainty, with the inescapable fact that I cannot have complete mastery of the infinite amount I could want to know about medicine. Moreover, I am facing an overall paradigm shift as I come to recognize that much of my success before medical school was rooted in the availability of answers, but that my future success as a doctor and as an adult will be rooted in my ability to make the right decision based upon incomplete information.

So I resonate with Advent all the more. The metaphor of being in darkness and waiting for the light, being uncertain and waiting for an answer or a solution, is incredibly powerful. Whether the awaited light is the solstice or the Messiah or the lifting of sadness or worry, the waiting itself is worthy of recognition. It is even worthy of celebration, especially as it already is by faith communities, because it is part of the essence of faith. Believing in troubled times that a child will be born to change the world and that a star will bring light where there was darkness. Believing that the laws of the universe mean the Earth will continue to turn on its axis and bring back the daylight, without ever being able to see it move. And acting on that belief by continuing to put one foot in front of the other and continuing to go forward, and preparing the manger. The Maccabees did so, as I understand the Hanukkah story: expecting the oil in the temple to last only one night, they lit the lamp anyway, out of a need to express their joy at their victory and to show that their lives and their culture would continue on despite persecution. And sometimes the answer to faith is unexpected happenings: a great miracle happened there, the oil burned for eight days. Centuries later, as I gathered together with friends around a menorah in my classmate’s apartment and mumbled through the candle blessings then talked earnestly with them about our dreams and our fears, I felt surrounded by love and light, and the holiday season became a time of brightness for me even in the face of my uncertainty and the darkness of the winter.

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
…
O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.