Joyful chiming

All over America small children will be lying awake waiting for Santa Claus, listening for deer hooves, hoping for snow. You may remember what intense expectation was like. You had it once.

When I was a kid, the pump was primed for Christmas expectation by the Advent calendar, counting down the days like the man at Cape Canaveral used to count down seconds till rocket liftoff. Do they still do that, I wonder.

Christmas expectation tended to lessen as we got older and socks and overalls replaced Erector Sets and Besty Wetsy dolls as presents. (Expectation should lay hold of funner stuff.)

The ancient Jews, there was an expectant lot. A litany of failures notwithstanding, the last prophet’s voice is still heard singing of Messiah: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. … And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children” (Malachi 4:5-6). On what basis this most sanguine song? Their merits? Nay, God’s faithfulness to promises: “For I, the Lord, do not change” (3:6).

In the dawning of Anno Domini are individuals in expectation all over lowly Judea, as the earth holds its breath and Mary keeps her secrets. Softly she touches her roundness and dreams. Yonder old Zechariah, scribbling on a chalkboard to Elizabeth, doubts no more. Anna, invisible old widow, save to God, keeps daily vigil at the temple, and is not disappointed.

It is all too common and too sad that by adulthood Christmas bells should grow so faint that only children hear them.

Loss of expectation is loss of faith. It has to be. What else is faith but expectation? Ray Stedman in Authentic Christianity lists “five unmistakable qualities of Christianity” that he says “cannot be successfully counterfeited”—and “unquenchable optimism” tops the list. His prime example is Paul and Silas finding themselves in a jail in Philippi and singing for joy: Things look so bad, God must be up to something good.

The opposite is the man who thinks things look so good, God must be up to something bad. Like “the lean, hard-bitten man” C.S. Lewis considers in The Great Divorce. You show him heaven and he thinks there’s a catch to it, and grumbles about going back to the old town:

“I guess I’ve seen about all there is to see. … All propaganda. … All that idea of staying is only an advertisement stunt. … When I was out east, I went to see Pekin. … Nothing to it. Just one darn wall inside another. Just a trap for tourists. … All run by the same people. … Hell? Yes. It’s a flop too. They lead you to expect red fire and devils and all sorts of interesting people sizzling on grids—Henry VIII and all that—but when you get there it’s just like any other town.”

When his humble companion suggests that he might get to like heaven if he gave it a chance, Hard-Bitten replies, “I know all about that. … Same old lie. People have been telling me that sort of thing all my life. They told me in nursery that if I were good I’d be happy. And they told me in school that Latin would get easier as I went on. And after I’d been married a month, some fool was telling me that there were always difficulties at first, but with Tact and Patience I’d soon ‘settle down’ and like it!”

Mistrust of God is the opposite of expectation.

I got prayed up and my husband got prayed up and I drove to a long-planned, long-awaited appointment where I would talk to a young man I love about eternal life. The meeting went as badly as it could go, and I was ready to hang up my expectations. My husband then said words to this effect: “What if the devil’s finest work is to make us give up believing in God, and expecting from Him, just when we should dig in? You and I are going to pray that whether in 24 hours or 24 years, God will use your fumbling words for good in the life of that young man.”

Let us rekindle expectation this Christmas season and beyond. It is all too common and too sad that by adulthood Christmas bells should grow so faint that only children hear them. You heard the joyful chiming once. Be that child again.

Email aseupeterson@wng.org