In some ways, remembering has never been easier. This week, a Facebook memory brought up something I posted five years ago—back when I was still new to Emmanuel and still pretty new to being a pastor. In the summer of 2020, after we moved into our house and settled in a bit, I started building a dining room table. We had never had a full dining room before, and as an amateur woodworker, I was excited to try my hand at creating something meaningful for our home.
But, of course, something else was happening in 2020. As I worked on that table and shared my progress, I remember feeling a little down. The COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to know when—or even if—that table would host homecooked meals, lively game nights, or energetic rounds of Dungeons & Dragons. I was so focused on the uncertainty of the moment that I couldn’t imagine the future that was still, quietly and surely, unfolding.
Then a friend reminded me what Advent is really about.
As we enter this season of Advent once more, those words from 2020 still speak powerfully. So I’ll let my past self tell the story. This is what I wrote on November 20, 2020:
“Sometimes something is more than what it seems…
Some of you have noticed that we have been working on a new table for our new house. It’s the biggest project I’ve done in a while. If you don’t know, our process looks like me building something, and then Cassie finishes it. (stain, paint, sealer, etc.) She’s the mastermind (of course!) and it was her idea to use reclaimed porch posts as legs. And it is finished.
Last week, I was lamenting to a friend who had commented on the building process, about what a shame it was that I was building a bigger table only to have it remain unfilled for the foreseeable future, as this pandemic continues. That friend, Ashton, smiles and so faithfully reminds me that as people of God we are called to an active waiting, an active preparation, an active hope—that building a bigger table is an act of faith that declares that there will be a time when that table will be full.
I’m sure he said it much better than I, but it was a reminder that this Advent season reminds us that we are called to live now in ways that point to the promises of God. A foretaste of the feast to come, if you will. A feast that will happen at a much bigger table than this.
And so we build. Not in spite of COVID-19, but because of it.”
Friends, as Advent begins, may we continue the holy work of building—building hope, building community, building signs of God’s kingdom—even when the purpose isn’t immediately clear. Advent invites us to wait faithfully, and faithful waiting is never passive. It always asks something of us. So let’s keep building, trusting that God is already preparing the feast to come.