Advent | A Family ReflectionSample

Repentance and Rest
by Tish Harrison Warren

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Psalm 130:5–6 

Eastern and Western liturgical traditions both celebrate Advent, but our practices have a slightly different flavor and focus. In Eastern Orthodox churches, Advent is a penitential season, a “little Lent.” In Western liturgical traditions, we emphasize preparation for Christ’s coming, which certainly involves repentance but also entails rest, hope, longing, and quiet.

Advent holds in tension two complementary but seemingly paradoxical postures of faith: repentance and rest. Isaiah tells us that “in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (30:15). To me, the pain and rigor of repentance seem at odds with the comfort and ease of rest, but in Scripture and in Advent, we find them entwined. We can rest in the certainty of God’s coming kingdom even as we repent for the ways we’ve failed to live up to the vision of that kingdom. Because we hold repentance and rest together, we don’t belittle or ignore what has been dark, twisted, and disappointing in this past year. Rather, we are called to face it squarely while trusting in a God who will prevail in the end.

We live in a noisy culture where we often feel we have to scream just to be heard—where it seems impossible to hear a still, small voice. Advent bids us to quiet down, repent, and lean into longing. Redemption is sneaking into our corner of the universe, just as it was announced to some unsuspecting shepherds on the night of Christ’s birth. Returning to Christ and resting in him isn’t an escape from the darkness of the world. It’s a proclamation that, in the midst of darkness, there remains another way—the only way.

Meditate on Psalm 130:5–6 and Isaiah 30:15. How can repentance, rest, hope, and longing intersect in your spiritual observance of Advent this year?

  

Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church of North America and the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary.