Advent and Facebook Creeping

What do these two seemingly different things have to do with each other?

This idea came to me during my morning devotionals. I woke up earlier than I usually do on Mondays to make sure that I had enough time to make the trek across campus to my friends' house. (Around this time last year, I made the regrettable decision to live on the complete opposite side of campus from most of my friends.) A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to spend my Monday and Wednesday mornings in my friends' living room doing devotionals together.

So, I bundled up in my basic-college-girl parka, filled my thermos with coffee and vanilla creamer, and headed out the door. 23 minutes and one frozen nose later, I entered their house and was greeted with warm hugs from my friends Gabe and Maddie. In that moment, the long walk felt worth it. We sat down on the couch in their holiday-decorated living room and decided to begin the You Version Bible app's reading plan "Rediscovering the Christmas Season".

We started reading the post for December 1st (yes, we started a day early because I'm sure I will not be able to keep up!). Along with Luke 2: 21-40, the app gave us an short, introductory reading about Advent. We learned about the origin of the word "Advent" (Latin for "arrival" or "coming) and that the church celebrates Advent as a remembrance of Christ's first coming 2,000 years ago. It is a way to look forward to the promise Jesus has given us that he will come again some day to end all of the suffering here on earth.

At the end of the reading, this question was posed: "How can your life reflect [Anna and Simeon's] kind of anticipation?"

My first thought was something along the lines of, Frick, Luke 2 says that Anna literally never left the temple and worshipping God with prayer and fasting day and night. I can't do that. After that quick moment of fear, I got to thinking, Okay, how can I realistically anticipate Jesus' second advent in this season of my life when everything is so busy?

And then, I anticipate people all the time.

My role as a Communication Studies major includes lots of reading and writing, but also, I need to constantly be in the loop about all things media. And on the New Media/Social Media track, this means spending a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Probably more than the average individual my age.

Anyways...

Dictionary.com defines anticipation as:

1. the act of anticipating

2. realization in advance; foretaste

3. expectation or hope

4. previous notion; slight previous impression

Like most people my age, I am an expert in online creeping. Within two minutes of knowing a person's first name (or even sometimes not even that much), I could most likely tell you their last name, birthday, list of family members, whether or not they are currently or have recently been in a relationship, the name of their pets, where they live, what they like to eat for breakfast, and their political/religious views. It's a gift.

But could I tell you this much about Jesus?

I would like to think I could say yes, I know as much about his life as I do about the cute boy in my class that I've never spoken to.

What would happen if I spent more time creeping on Jesus than other people?

What would it look like to anticipate him right now?

To realize in advance that he is coming? (HE'S FREAKING COMING BACK!!!!!)

To expect and hope in him?

To do everything I can to have a previous notion of him?

Before I end, I want to clarify something.

[creeping: the act or practice of following someone persistently or stealthily]

There is one major issue I see in relating creeping to what it means to follow and seek Jesus. When I creep on someone on Facebook, the idea is that they will never find out, that they won't respond, that I may never even speak to them. And unless I've mustered up the courage to send them a friend request, I won't even be able to see past the ten most recent profile pictures.

But with Jesus, there are no boundaries. Every moment of every day, he is waiting to talk to me and spend time with me. I don't have to sneak around to learn about him. He knows me, each part of me (even the ugly pictures I un-tag myself in) and he can't get enough of me.

I want to spend every day in constant anticipation of his second advent.