Lord, Help me to hold out.
The first time I heard this song, I was at church. I could not sing. I was 21 weeks pregnant, awaiting the birth of my third child. A child destined to die.
We had just learned that due to inexplicable medical conditions, our baby would live only a few days, at most a year, after birth.
Lord, Help me to hold out until my change come.
Waves of song covered the congregation and sunk into my body. Down, down into the thick darkness of my uterus where my child was still growing inside me.
Weeping in the pew, I tried to imagine how to hold out through the terrifying months of pregnancy ahead. Through the anguished anticipation of the brief, compromised life and certain death of my child.
My voice was strangled with dread. And yet there I was, awash in song, immersed in these words. Sung, seemingly for me, by others. Sung with joy, honest faith, power.
Give me the patience I need to hold out.
Before Jesus’ birth, the People of God were holding out for the Messiah. It was excruciating. Generations of waiting. Holding out hope for a Messiah who would deliver them from their long and varied suffering: war, slavery, exile, misogyny and xenophobia, illness, plagues, deranged and vengeful leaders, domestic and sexual violence, child abuse, idolatry, poverty, hunger, thirst, infant death. Generation after generation.
It’s staggering, isn’t it? That our ancestors in faith somehow held onto hope generation after generation? That a collective faith survived every personal and communal trial and trauma?
Together as a People, they held out. Despite all odds, against all logic, when Jesus was finally born, a faithful remnant persisted, holding out hope for the Messianic promises. That God With Us was born into a community of believers seems miraculous in itself.
Until my change come!
Many expected a Strong Man, a Warrior King who would lead them in revolution to overthrow political opponents and upend social oppression. The Messiah would arrive on the scene and promptly crush every evil!
And then, a baby was born. A baby destined to die. The wounded, crucified one. Who wouldn’t stop talking about mercy. Who spoke in parables, who centered power around children. Who kept healing individuals, waded through throngs of suffering. Kept withdrawing to pray alone. Who never sat on a throne, nor accumulated wealth. Never wielded a weapon. Never led any army. Never mapped out a strategic plan. It was all so maddening! Just what was all this waiting for?
Jesus, the Promised One, was not at all what they’d expected.
He is still not what we expect!
I’m begging you, Jesus. Help me. Help me to hold out.
Our baby girl died in utero and was born premature and stillborn several weeks after I was first held in God’s grace by this song.
She died. My most intimate hope, obliterated beyond recognition.
My way may not be easy. You did not say that it would be.
Our most precious personal and collective yearnings are shattered, time and time again. And yet we continue to reach towards God With Us, towards God’s promises. Isn’t it staggering?
Can we hold out in faith for a God who does not prevent tears from falling, does not even avoid suffering and death? Does not prevent tyrants from rising to power? Does not upend the crushing oppression of God’s poor and vulnerable?
The Advent invitation is to hang on and hold out. To unite our fragile faith to the long, resilient waiting of the ancient Israelites. To cling in hope to God With Us, with us through it all.
The Living God who travels the way of devastating loss into resurrection. Again and again and again and again, from generation to generation. In us, with us, among us. Emmanuel, God With Us. Always.
