The Posture of Expectation

Watchfulness and Readiness: A Reflection on Hebrews 13:7-16, Luke 12:32-40, and Luke 1:26-38

The Lord doesn’t come to those who have everything figured out. He comes to those who are awake.

When the angel appears to Mary, she’s doing ordinary work in an ordinary town. She’s not a priest in the Temple, not a scribe with Torah memorized, not positioned anywhere near the centers of religious power. She’s a young woman in Nazareth, attentive to her life. The angel’s greeting startles her—she’s perplexed, wondering what this means—but she doesn’t close down. She asks her question honestly: How shall this be, since I have no husband? Then, when the impossible is explained, she says the words that change everything: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.

This is receptivity. Not passivity—Mary actively chooses, actively consents. But her activity is the activity of openness: I’m here. I’m listening. Let it be.

The Lord tells His disciples in Luke: Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. This isn’t frantic preparation. It’s sustained readiness. Lamps lit, attention awake, living in a posture where you can receive what comes.

Most of us aren’t ready because we’re not present. We’re distracted by noise—external and internal. The noise of constant entertainment, the noise of anxious planning, the noise of rehearsing old resentments or fantasizing about future victories. We’re anywhere but here. And when the knock comes—the moment of grace, the invitation to transformation, the presence of God breaking into ordinary time—we miss it. Not because we’re evil, but because we’re asleep.

Advent teaches the spirituality of expectation. The Incarnation didn’t happen to people who weren’t waiting. Mary was waiting—not with a blueprint of how God should act, but with an openness to being surprised. The shepherds were watching their flocks, awake in the night. Simeon and Anna had spent years in the Temple, attentive to the promise. Zechariah was performing his duties when the angel appeared. Elizabeth recognized the presence of the Lord when Mary entered her house.

The pattern repeats: Divine presence comes to those who are awake to the present moment.

The writer of Hebrews tells the community: Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith. This isn’t nostalgia for a golden age. It’s learning the posture of receptivity by observing those who embodied it. Your spiritual ancestors weren’t perfect—scripture never hides their failures—but they practiced presence. They kept their lamps burning. They heard the knock and opened the door.

Then Hebrews gives the staggering claim: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. The God who appeared to Abraham at Mamre, who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel, who walked with Moses on Sinai, who became incarnate in Mary’s womb—this is the same presence available to you now. Not as memory, not as distant hope, but as present reality. The Incarnation didn’t end. Christ didn’t visit briefly and leave. The union of divine and human that began in Mary’s womb continues. The veil is torn. Access is open. The question isn’t whether God is present; the question is whether you’re awake to that presence.

Luke records the Lord’s assurance: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. The kingdom isn’t something you achieve through heroic effort or theological correctness. It’s given. Your work is receptivity—the same receptivity Mary demonstrated. Not earning, not controlling, not figuring it all out first. Opening.

But receptivity requires something costly: Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail. This isn’t moralism about money. It’s about what owns your attention. You cannot be present to God while clutching everything else. The possessions—literal and metaphorical—are the noise. The stuff you’re holding onto: the need to be right, the old wound you won’t release, the fantasy of who you should be, the security you’re trying to construct apart from God.

Mary’s fiat—her “let it be”—required letting go of how she thought her life would unfold. She was betrothed to Joseph; she had plans. The angel’s announcement shattered those plans. She could have refused. She could have said, “This doesn’t fit my understanding of how God works” or “I need to figure out the logistics first” or “Let me consult the proper authorities.” Instead: Let it be to me according to your word.

This is the spirituality of Advent: releasing your grip so your hands are open to receive.

The Lord’s warning is urgent: You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour. Not because God is playing games or trying to catch you off guard, but because divine presence always breaks into the unexpected hour. The Incarnation didn’t happen when the religious establishment was prepared for it. It happened in a backwater village to an unknown girl. The Second Coming won’t happen on your schedule. Grace comes in the present moment—the only moment that actually exists—and if you’re not present to this moment, you miss it.

Hebrews connects this readiness to worship: Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. This is the Jesus Prayer made incarnate. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”—not as formula, but as sustained posture of invoking divine presence into your actual life. The praise isn’t ritual divorced from reality; it’s acknowledging the name in the midst of ordinary existence.

And then the practical application: Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Watchfulness isn’t escapism. You’re not waiting for Jesus to return so you can finally leave this world behind. You’re awake within this world, recognizing it as the arena of divine presence. The Incarnation means matter is being united to divine life. Your body, your ordinary tasks, your interactions with actual people—this is where grace works.

When Mary said yes to the angel, the Word became flesh in her body. The Incarnation wasn’t an abstract theological event. It was biological, physical, messy, embodied. Mary carried God in her womb, nursed Him at her breast, taught Him to walk. The God who holds the universe together needed His mother to change His diapers. This is the scandal of Christianity: the material world is the place of encounter with the divine, not an obstacle to be transcended.

The watchfulness the Lord commands is therefore incarnational. Keep your lamps burning here, in your actual life. Be present to this conversation, this meal, this task, this moment of beauty, this person in front of you. Don’t sleepwalk through your days fantasizing about future holiness or ruminating on past failures. The knock is coming now. The angel is appearing now. The invitation is now.

St. Maximos the Confessor teaches that Christ is the Logos holding all things together, present in every particle of creation. The universe is not neutral matter occasionally visited by God. It’s saturated with divine presence, charged with glory. What blocks your awareness of this isn’t God’s absence—it’s your distraction, your noise, your refusal to be present. Advent spirituality is learning to still the noise so you can hear the knock.

Hebrews concludes: For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. This isn’t escapism; it’s realism. The present order is passing away. The kingdom is both here and coming. You participate now in what will be revealed fully. Mary participated in the Incarnation—God literally taking flesh in her—and that union continues. The Church is Christ’s body. The Eucharist is participation in His flesh. The city that is to come isn’t somewhere else; it’s this creation fully transfigured, matter united completely to divine life.

So the watchfulness isn’t grim vigilance, waiting for a thief in the night. It’s joyful expectancy, lamps burning because you know the Master is coming home. It’s Mary’s posture: Here I am. Let it be. It’s the shepherds’ posture: awake in the ordinary night when heaven opens. It’s Simeon’s posture: years of faithful presence until the moment he holds the infant Christ and says, Now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.

The question Advent asks you is simple: Are you present? Are your lamps burning? Is your attention awake?

Because the knock is coming. The angel is appearing. The Word is becoming flesh. Not in some distant theological past or future, but now—in this moment, in your life, in the ordinary places where you’ve stopped looking because you thought nothing sacred could happen there.

Mary shows the way: receive the impossible with openness. Let the Word take flesh in your actual existence. Stop clutching your plans, your understanding, your need for control. Open your hands. Light your lamp. Be present.

Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.

This is the posture that receives the Incarnation. Yesterday in Mary’s womb. Today in your life. Forever in the kingdom where all creation is united to divine life.

The Master is coming home from the feast. He’s knocking now. Open the door.