I hope I won't alienate anyone reading this by admitting that I actually kind of like being called for jury duty. Sure, it can be a hassle, especially if your life isn't easy to rearrange for a day or two or more. But I believe in the idea of jury trials (I was a civics geek in school, sue me), and I know that everyone has to do their part in order for it to work. Even if I also know that any lawyer, defending or prosecuting, who didn't strike me from a panel would deserve to be disbarred. Be that as it may.

When I showed up at the jury room at the courthouse in Waukegan early in November, I remembered that it's like a holding pen. A nice one, really--comfortable, with a little café area and a quiet workspace. But your main job is to wait. Wait for the judge to welcome you, wait for the jury director guy to announce a panel, wait for your number to be called. People read, or work, or look at their phones, or chat with their fellow jurors. I did some work and then read a book. I did pretty well on the court trivia questions projected on the tv screens. 

I never did get called, and eventually got released for the day and the rest of the week. But there was something calming about the experience of just sitting there, waiting. You can busy yourself with all kinds of tasks, large or small, important or trivial. But you never quite forget that you're just sitting there, waiting to be called or not. Life is like that, maybe more than we usually realize. We have plenty to occupy us, but a lot of those tasks take place under the umbrella of waiting for...something. Life passages, big events, sudden crises or opportunities that require something of us. And often enough, those passages and events and crises don't look much like whatever we expected them to be. And we don't necessarily respond the way we would expect ourselves to, either.

The season of Advent is about that experience, as we hear it in the words of people who knew they were waiting--waiting for God to act in the world, waiting for relief from oppression, waiting for a Redeemer. And none of that looks exactly like people had expected it to look, and no one responds exactly as they might have expected themselves to respond. But the lesson is more or less clear: when we wait for God, we don't wait in vain. And the tasks we are given to occupy us while we wait--faith, hope, charity for each other and the world--are not just filling time but pointing the world to the One who makes time and space, work and rest, waiting and fulfillment. Don't miss this season of fearful wonder, awesome hope, and glorious fulfillment. See you in church!