The older I get (and the older my boys get), the less Advent equals chocolate treats and the more it means admitting longings. The onslaught of consumerism and its promises of fulfillment only serve to exacerbate emptiness and stir deeper hunger for home in me.

If I am honest, all the tinsel makes me tired. And my tiredness makes me feel lonely and strange. But then, the Spirit is quick to console me. After all, Advent is intended to be a reminder that we aren’t home until the One who made his home with us once comes again to bring us home to Him forever.

The Russian poet Joseph Brodsky captures this well in one of his many Christmas poems.

“When it’s Christmas we’re all of us magi…

And the bearers of moderate gifts
leap on buses and jam all the doorways,
disappear into courtyards that gape,
though they know that there’s nothing inside there:
not a beast, not a crib, not yet her,
round whose head gleams a nimbus of gold.

Emptiness. But the mere thought of that
brings forth lights as if out of nowhere.
Herod reigns but the stronger he is,
the more sure, the more certain the wonder.
In the constancy of this relation
is the basic mechanics of Christmas.”

This magi bearing moderate gifts has Advent-sized longings that don’t fit nicely into wrapped boxes and can’t be stuffed into stockings. I long for deeply significant work. I long to be fully known and fully seen. I long for deep soul satisfaction that is only possible in the full presence of Christ. I long for peace that isn’t as fragile as a glass Christmas ornament.

Advent Aches

It’s a costly act of trust to keep coming,
But coming we are, yet and again.
Dragging our deepest desires to you,
In faith we’ll keep asking “When?”

When will these hungers be sated?
When will we see your beautiful face?
Help us to see present emptiness 
As placeholders for future grace. 

Echoing emptiness aches for fullness,
Nature hates vacuums in space and soul.
Looking back on your birth, we want you back;
For Your Presence alone makes us whole.

If you find yourself with unmet longings this Advent season, please know that there isn’t something wrong with you. Longings and deep desires are the right response of eternal beings in a temporal world. The Incarnation was Christ’s way of making his home with us that he might die to make a pathway home for us. The One who came will come again, and coming, He will make all things new (Rev. 21: 5).