December 12, 2022

Psalm 42

Advent Longing

Psalm 42 is most ingrained in my memory as a praise and worship song that my youth minister would lead on guitar: 

As the deer longs for water
My soul longs for You, Lord,
My soul is thirsty for the living God
I long to see Your face. 

(* see note)

Singing this song in my head just now, I wonder: What does it mean to long for God?

The Advent season stirs in me always a rush of emotion in which memory and longing intertwine. It is, perhaps, my most nostalgic season. Throughout the month of December, I catch myself remembering scenes from my youth: helping my father hang lights off the porch; sitting between my parents during Christmas Eve services in our small Baptist church; eating the traditional Christmas day meal beside grandparents, now long departed from this earthly life. There’s this swell of emotion within me throughout this season. At once, I feel both filled by these memories and also emptied by the absence that they represent: the people no longer with me; relationships that have changed; the sheer innocence and joy I could once revel in throughout the season. 

Many of us carry different emotions about the Christmas season. Some long for the past. Others have painful histories and memories around the season they do not want to remember. And most, I suspect, carry a complex mixture of pain and joy.

What do you long for in this season? 

My Advent nostalgia is not the same as longing for God, but I’ve decided there is a family resemblance between the two. Longing for God is longing for a love that never ends, betrays, or leaves. Longing for God is longing for justice that is righteous, grace-filled and yet unwavering. Longing for God is longing for home, the place where our souls feel right, feel at peace, feel safe. 

So, whether Advent brings in you a longing for the past, or it stirs in you hope for a better future, or it brings in you grief that the promise of the season has never lived up to its reality, remember that your longing is precisely what this season is about. Advent is about longing after God. 

As the deer longs for water
My soul longs for You, Lord.

May our souls continue to long for, and find their peace in God. Amen. 

Richard Coble

 

*Jim Nailon – guitar
Jim Hollingsworth – violin
Arrangement Copyright 2013 by Jim Nailon
Recorded in concert at St. Rose Catholic Church, Longview, WA, on July 6, 2014.
Also on Jim Nailon’s CD, Praying the Guitar, available through his website: www.liturgicalguitarist.com – – – – – – – – – –
For more videos & sheetmusic, visit: http://www.liturgicalguitarist.com/

(not Richard Coble’s youth minister)