The Morning After Thanksgiving

We’ve started something of a tradition in our house. I stay up too late Thanksgiving night, either smoking a victory cigar after the Rebs beat Mississippi State or watching the end of the NFL game and playing video games while furiously refreshing the Ole Miss message board after a loss seeing if we’ve fired our coach yet or not. Sadly, my cigars remained unlit and the future of our coach is uncertain.

Anyway, after getting entirely too little sleep, I get up with the boys and we sit in the back and listen to Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” from beginning to end. It’s a great album and a fun time, and honestly this is the only Christmas album anyone should ever listen to, but I’m not doing my old man yells at a cloud about modern worship music bit right now.

This album has been around for a long time, and it got a little sprucing up in 2019 when they re-recorded it, but every time I listen to it I’m struck by something new. This time it was something in the song “So Long, Moses” which is one of my favorite songs on the entire album. It tells the story of Israel in the wilderness from the death of Moses through the words of Isaiah. I love how Peterson writes and sings about David, and how you can hear the disappointment in the music – David was supposed to be the guy, and in some ways he was, but his reign ultimately led to these words:

So hello, prophets
The kingdom is broken now
The people of God
They’ve been scattered abroad
For how long, O Lord?

“How long, O Lord?” is one of the most heart wrenching questions in Scripture. It pops up in Psalm 13, in the prophets, and the saints gathered around the throne in Revelation ask the question too – “how long?” It’s easy for us to forget that the period between the breaking of the kingdom was a really long time. There was a lot of suffering and devastation. Nothing went right – the Promised Land? They lost it. David, the great king? Failed. His sons? Worse. And then came the exile. Cynically, I laugh at Jeremiah 29:11. It’s a great senior quote – I think it was one of mine too. “God knows the plans He has for me! Plans to go off to college and live a great life and make friends and do well in school and…” all of that. Jeremiah wasn’t speaking to a group of upper middle-class graduating high school seniors heading off to college* – he was speaking to a group of people who were about to get shipped off to exile in conditions so bad that eating their children would be an option.

Now, look, God has plans for high school seniors of all socioeconomic backgrounds. I’m not trying to diminish that. But Jeremiah’s words were a reminder to people asking that very question – “How long, O Lord?” – a reminder that even when it seemed hopeless, God had not and God would not abandon his plans or His people, He just wasn’t going to work the way they expected. And of course the people wanted to know, as Peterson writes:

Will he be a king on a throne?
Full of power with a sword in his fist?
Prophet, tell us will there ever be another king like this?
Full of wisdom, full of strength
The hearts of the people are his
Prophet, tell us will there be
Another king like this?

Personally, this question “how long” resonates with me pretty deeply after this year. I’m not going into full detail here, but suffice to say – it’s been a year. And everyone, in some way or another, has had “a year.” Even good ones, because that’s the product of living in a fallen, sinful world. We also tend to do this thing with suffering where it’s a competition – I can’t tell you how many times students have told me some of the most heartbreaking, life changing stuff and followed up with “well, someone always has it worse than me so I know I shouldn’t complain.” No, complain. Lament is a lost art, but this gets me out into waters I said I wasn’t swimming in today. “How long?” is such a good and important question, and we need to re-learn the art of asking it because it redirects us to this good king, full of wisdom and strength. And Peterson writes:

And Isaiah said
He’ll bear no beauty or glory
Rejected, despised
A man of such sorrow
We’ll cover our eyes
He’ll take up our sickness
And carry our tears
For his people
He will be pierced
He’ll be crushed for our evils
Our punishment feel
And by his wounds
We will be healed
We will be healed
From you, O Bethlehem
Small among Judah
A ruler will come
Ancient and strong
From you, O Bethlehem
Small among Judah
A ruler will come
Ancient and strong
From you, O Bethlehem
Small among Judah
A ruler will come
Ancient and strong
From you, O Bethlehem
Small among Judah
A ruler will come
Ancient and strong
Ancient and strong

I’m not big on holidays and church calendar stuff, but this is why Advent is really important. It prepares our hearts to celebrate the coming of Christ properly, and it gives us a proper sense of the world Jesus was born into, and I think it helps us to answer that question – “how long, O Lord?” Here’s Paul in Galatians 4:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And it brings me back to my favorite line from “Joy to the World” (hot take: it’s a song we should sing year round, not just at Christmas, because it’s as much about Christ’s second coming as his first):

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make
His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found
Far as the curse is found
Far as, far as the curse is found

Far as the curse is found, indeed. Happy morning after Thanksgiving, and may Advent be a time of thoughtful preparation and healthy expectation for all of us!