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Meditation for December 10, 2025
Thomas Merton and Karl Barth
Reading: Psalm 62
For God alone my soul in silence waits;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken.
How long will you assail me to crush me, all of you together,
as if you were a leaning fence, a toppling wall?
They seek only to bring me down from my place of honor;
lies are their chief delight.
They bless with their lips,
but in their hearts they curse.
For God alone my soul in silence waits;
truly, my hope is in him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.
In God is my safety and my honor;
God is my strong rock and my refuge.
Put your trust in him always, O people,
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
Those of high degree are but a fleeting breath,
even those of low estate cannot be trusted.
On the scales they are lighter than a breath,
all of them together.
Put no trust in extortion;
in robbery take no empty pride;
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
God has spoken once, twice have I heard it,
that power belongs to God.
Steadfast love is yours, O Lord,
for you repay everyone according to his deeds.
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
Advent is often described as a season of waiting. What is less well defined, however, is what exactly we are waiting for in this season. The answer you will hear most frequently in church is that we are waiting for the coming of Christ, but rarely do we do a good job of even describing what this means.
The reality is, there is likely much that we are waiting for: warmer weather, seeing family, exchanging gifts, a new calendar year. We can find Christ in all of these, and Christ is present in more places than just the ones we know to wait for. But waiting when we know what is to come is one thing, and it can be hard to differentiate between the prayerful waiting and preparation of Advent and the anticipatory excitement of looking forward to something that will bring us joy. Again, I believe that Christ is present in both of these experiences but also that they are nonetheless distinct.
In the Psalm appointed for today, the Psalmist does not know exactly what they are waiting for. We hear the beautiful language of the soul waiting for God in silence, but no further definition is given to help us experience this. What we do know is that God is present with us even when we are uncomfortable waiting and even when we wish God was making the inconvenience of waiting go away.
In this holiday shopping season, I have noticed a number of advertisements with time-sensitive calls to action. Some even include a clock so the reader can watch as time runs out on the precious sales. Consumerism is most successful when it is encouraging us not to wait, hence the more recent awareness of the dangers of things like fast fashion and fast food. And while I appreciate the opportunity to think of loved ones and consider gifts that would bring them joy, the barrage of advertisements can get a bit overwhelming and overstimulating.
Today, the Episcopal Church remembers Thomas Merton, a monastic who dealt with waiting, stillness, and uncertainty in much of his life and writing. His witness is a stark contrast to the advertisements that feed on our scarcity mindsets. For both Merton and the Psalmist, there is no sense that God’s grace will run out or be a “limited time only” perk. In fact, Christ keeps coming again and again. Christ waits for us. Even on the days where we don’t feel like we were the best version of ourselves, Christ is there waiting.
For us, waiting can be both a privilege as well as a burden. The hardest kind of waiting comes when we do not know the end or the outcome. But even when we do not know the direction of reason for our waiting, we know that grace is there. For in this season, we wait for a sign of God’s grace to appear in a manger. Yet through our journey, the one for whom we wait is walking alongside us, guiding us towards new life and new light.
Prayer (attributed to Thomas Merton)
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
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