But wait! There’s more!

The commercials cry out, “But wait! There’s more!” And so there is. But material goods will never satisfy our longing for the infinite, no matter how impressive the product.

Why is that? Could it be that we were made for something more than what is made by man? Consider the products that belong to us. We know why they exist - what they’re for - because we made them. We identify them with the purpose for which they were created. But what about the person we see in the mirror?

Is it possible that we always long for more because we long for God? And is it possible that we long for God because we were made by Him, and made for Him?

Advent reminds us each year that the birth of Christ brings this “more” we’re all looking for, and that His coming again in glory will bring still more! It's a season that speaks a word of hope into our despair: “Wait,” it says, “because there’s more.”

This “more” that we desire is always coming to us in Jesus - always being offered to us. Will we go out to meet Him? Will we learn to pray with Him? We trust the commercials to fulfill their promises of “more.” But do we trust God will fulfill His?

The Season of Advent carries within it the promise of something new. Each year the birth of Jesus comes to us like the dawn of a new day. And yet this same Christ is as old as the Ancient Father. His origin is from the beginning.

Perhaps this is the newness we desire, that God would reveal to us our origin in Him. We grow tired of ideologies. We are disappointed by this world’s unreasonable proposal that we give purpose to ourselves by creating our own identity. We long for more.

Advent is a time of anticipating the Word that reminds us that we are more than a market to be exploited, defined not by our inventions, nor held hostage by our possessions. We are sons and daughters of God, destined to live with Him forever.

The Church may well be old, as the world says, but that is only because every generation has longed for more. Every Christian in history comes to the same conclusion as we do: Life is a gift given to us by God twice, first at our own birth, then again at His.

I am convinced that if we look to Christ together, we will never grow weary of the Faith. On the contrary, every day for us will be like a new dawn arising with a new promise of more. And life will always be, for us, full of wonder. +