Holy Waiting

The dark is deep and still around her; the silence within is deeper and darker yet. Not a frightening darkness but a gentle sweetness that envelops her in the early dawn, alone but not alone. Hands resting on her distended belly, she feels the throbbing, growing life. The peace is a blanket, wrapping round her, protecting her from the uneasiness that shadows the edges of her days.

Soon she will need to move, to get up and begin the day, knead the bread and sweep the step. She will not go to the well for water, though. The judging glances are too heavy for her heart to bear, and the jug now beyond her strength to carry. Her shamed mother finds it hard to believe her story. Still, a jug of water appears on the girl’s doorstep each early morning. She knows it is her mother’s silent gift.

Soon, she will need to rouse Joseph to begin his day, but not yet. Not just yet. Just for now she will sit in the stillness and feel the movement of the babe beneath her hands, picture the face she cannot see but loves already. Just for now, she will listen for the beat of her own heart linking her with the life of the Son of God within her. Just for now, for these moments, she will cherish that life, be at one with him, feel his life growing daily stronger within her and more obvious day by day.

The dusk is shadowing the edges of the hills. His calloused hands are strangely still. They are the huge hands of a worker, more comfortable wielding a tool than folded quietly. He thinks he should go in. The dinner aroma beckons him, and there is work to be done to prepare for a future he would never have chosen. His Mary has been alone, and she has been peeking out the door expectantly. But he will not go in. Not yet. Not just yet. Just for now he will wait.

He is not sure for what he waits. Yet deep within, in the place where the tears of a stoic man hide, he savours the sweetness of a strange tenderness. It is unfolding within him, even as he sees the belly of his beloved grow. He finds himself falling in love with the child she shelters. He longs to gaze at a face he cannot yet see. He cannot imagine what this love will cost him. The uncertainty of the road ahead threatens to overwhelm. But the love is stronger than the fear. So for now, in the gentle darkening of the evening, he will wait.

Centuries later, in the waiting days of Advent, another woman will be “great with child.” She will sit in the soft darkness before the dawn. And in that mysterious quiet she will love the child growing within her with a passionate tenderness that aches in her womb. And then she will think of Mary and of Joseph. She will receive their gift of Advent waiting – the waiting time for the Christ Child to be born anew in each of us. In the waiting time, in the dusk, the road ahead will seem shadowed and uncertain. Yet in the precious hiddenness of this waiting time, love will grow deeper than fear. And this babe, yet unborn, will grace her with an awe that will mark each Advent to come.

The woman will remember that first butterfly trembling of life deep in her belly. And she will understand that the almost indiscernible fluttering in her child-like soul so long ago was the Holy Spirit sparking new life. She will understand that before the Christ Child is born into her world, he is already growing within her. She will treasure those gentle hours of sitting alone, but not alone. She will let the peace wrap around her and love the two faces she cannot yet quite see. There is much to be done this day. But not yet. Just for now, she will wait.

An old woman now, she will sit again in the quiet dark of another early morning. The memories are sweet and the babes she bore are long gone to their own lives. Yet again, in Advent, in the silence, she waits. And in that stillness, deep within the core of her being, new life grows again. She quiets her work-worn hands on the distended belly of her soul and feels the beat of the heart of love that links her to the beloved face of the Son of God. The face that guided her along a road she often could not see. There is still much to be done this day. But not yet. Not just yet. For now, she will wait.

Photo by Umur Batur Kocak on Unsplash