Advent: Longing for the Promise

by David Schnasa Jacobsen

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When I was a little child, I didn’t get much about Advent. The gift-giving opulence of a North American Christmas loomed large in my mind and was certainly my focus as I breezed through Advent. As a child, Christmas bounty was the only thing really on my mind.

Underneath, though, a small truth was lurking there, one that only became clear as I got older. Although I had no clue, I did understand something important about Advent and that is longing.  Yes, longing! Implicit in longing is a deep desire for something not yet here. And that longing is more than just a feeling. Longing has a quiet power to reorient us to realities not yet present but surely on the horizon. As I settle into retirement in KW where I once lived out my vocation as a theological educator at the seminary, I have to say that longing reminds me that I am still that child, and still very much alive. I sometimes even welcome the longing as precious evidence of keeping connected to my humanity.

The genius of Luther’s theology is, to my mind, an Advent godsend. The engine of living Christian faith for Luther is nothing other than the divine promise. Promise reaches all the way back from the horizon to help us be the human beings we really are in relation to God and God’s world. God’s promise is clearly crucial for faith because the essence of promise is that it’s not so much a possession but a

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