The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before. ― Samuel Johnson

“He is exhausted, the King is exhausted on high!” Quinn, age 4, was singing at the top of his lungs from the corner of his bedroom. He’d heard us sing the popular 90s praise song, “He is Exalted,” at church, but because “exalted” wasn’t a word in his preschool vocabulary, he substituted one that was. No doubt, he’d heard me use “exhausted” many times as a working mother of four. I remember chuckling but quickly sobering as the truth of what my son sang washed over me. The Creator of the universe, the Lord of all who loved his people enough to give them free will only to watch them turn their backs on Him, the Father who sent his son to live among us, to suffer, die, and rise again for the salvation of the world–all of this must have been, and must continue to be, seriously exhausting.

And as we watch the daily news and plow through our daily lives, I’m guessing that many may describe our planet as exhausted. Even three centuries ago, English writer Samuel Johnson felt the persistent ache of the world’s exhaustion. Rather than succumb to it, however, he looks forward with anticipation that he might see something which he’d never seen before. Like fellow 18th century writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau who claimed that “Anticipation and Hope are twins,” Johnson built his anticipation on a foundation of hope. We build our own anticipation on all sorts of foundations, many of which are flimsy, worldly foundations that crumble and slip away like sand. In this season of Advent, the anticipation we witnessed in a waiting world was built on a firm foundation of hope in God’s promise to send a Messiah.

It goes without saying that act of anticipation can be exquisitely painful. I remember watching my children circle the Christmas tree, counting packages, mentally weighing and measuring them, imagining what lay beneath the wrapping paper. And I remember their nightly pleas, “Just one. Can’t we open just one?” Truthfully, the waiting was often just as painful for me, and more times than I can count, I found myself faltering, perilously close to caving in. In his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini writes: “Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.” Perhaps he’s right. Still, anticipating is a special type of waiting. Founded on hope, it’s a paradoxical mix of pain and pleasure. Even as we agonize in waiting, we rejoice in the hope that what we’ve waited for will be greater than we’ve imagined. Even though the wait is excruciating, it truly “hurts so good.”

Last year at this time, I made a trip to Kearney to see my brother perform in a community theater Christmas production and to visit my mom. Looking back, this was the last time I would see my mom in her faithful recliner, welcoming and visiting with family and guests who’d come to spend time with her. In a few weeks, she’d be bed-bound, and my siblings and I would gather to spend our final days with her. I knew, even as I grieved her impending death, that she’d anticipated this moment for six years. The moment when she’d enter into glory and see my father again. For six long years, she’d waited for death and rebirth. Her wait was painful, as daily, she grieved the loss of her husband, the love of her life. And it was wonderful, as she spent precious time with her family and friends, loving, encouraging, and offering counsel to all until the very end. Above all, her anticipation grounded her in sacred hope that “the dead in Christ will rise first” [1 Thessalonians 4:16]. I have only to close my eyes, and I can see my mother and father, feel their presence, hear their familiar words of greeting. And the expectation of remembering them is that special kind of expectation that brings both pain and pleasure. How I miss them. My tears seed my days in sweet anticipation of joining them in heaven.

There is an element of preparation in anticipation, the period during which we formulate plans to act upon what we’ve been anticipating. With all four of my children–through adoption and through birth–this period of preparation happily consumed me. There was a nursery to be outfitted (or re-outfitted), names to be chosen, hand-me-downs to be washed or clothes to be bought, siblings and family to be told. The preparation for a new baby came in like the tide, washing upon the shore of my days with urgency and certainty. Each act of preparation fueled my anticipation. As I folded blankets and washed bottles, I saw my new son or daughter grow up and become an adult in my mind. I imagined the lives they’d lead and the blessings they’d bestow. In Isaiah 40: 3-5, we read of the preparation for Christ in the Old Testament, words that John the Baptist repeats again in the New Testament as he announces Christ’s coming:

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord ; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

I think it’s safe to say that many of us greet each new day as if we’re entering the wilderness. That is, even as we try to control our circumstances, we encounter a jungle out there, one in which we’re often at the mercy of forces beyond our control. And so, we wake each day in expectation, prepared to forge a better, straighter way in this wilderness, to clear a path for Christ’s entry into our fallen world. I’m afraid that my own preparations are humble, daily reminders to refocus on what’s important, to cut through the clutter of responsibilities and schedules and find–again–the straighter, better path forward. They’re ongoing preparations, for I find that I often do what I don’t want to do, wandering off onto paths that too often lead away–rather than toward–Christ. And so, I rise each day prepared to make my way through the wilderness again.

There’s also an element of disappointment that may accompany anticipation. We build our expectations up to enormous proportions, creating outcomes that often grow exponentially with each passing day. When I was a sophomore in high school, I knew that my mom was making me something for Christmas. A self-taught seamstress, she could make anything. Our prom dresses, coats (and floor-length cape for my sister!), and school clothes were testaments to her skill and desire to outfit us with the funds she had available. I’d been imagining what she might be making me when I decided (or was this less decision than impulse?) to peer into the basement window where I knew she was a work on her sewing machine. And there it was: the pieces of a pleather (yes, this was a thing in the 70s–genuine artifical leather!) jumper laid out across the floor. I looked and backed away as If I’d been stung. I stood on the small sidewalk that ran along the side of our house and immediately regretted what I’d done. And what then? I had weeks until Christmas to live with my deceit. I’m not sure what gift I’d expected to discover, and it no longer mattered. What did matter was how I was to move forward, whether or not I’d be able to feign convincing surprise when I opened the gift on Christmas Eve. In the days after, I stewed in my own juices. I don’t actually remember much about how this Christmas Eve played out. In the years since, however, I remember how my expectation led to disappointment–in myself, not the gift–and how my focus shifted quickly from the gift to the gift-giver. In those remaining days before Christmas, I was consumed with my desire to show my mom the gratitude I genuinely felt.

Undoubtedly, there were some who’d anticipated their own kind of Messiah and who were sorely disappointed with the gift of a baby. Clearly, there were many whose expectations for a King of Kings were sorely disappointed with the gift of a suffering servant, the Son of God destined to die among thieves on a cross. Like me, they’d lived in anticipation of the gift. There were some, however, whose eyes were fixed firmly on the gift-giver. Those, like Mary, knew well the gift-giver and built their anticipation on God’s love and promise. There are who continue to live with this same type of anticipation, with the assurance that [e]very good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows [James 1:17]. In this season of Advent, as we look back upon that night in Bethlehem, we might also look forward in glorious anticipation of the gift few of us can begin to imagine. For our hope is not yet exhausted, and there is a way through the wilderness.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4: 16-17