In the 1930s, amid a world breaking down and lashing out, Langston Hughes wrote a poem that began:
I am so tired of waiting,
Aren’t you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Nearly a century later, these words still resonate—perhaps more powerfully than ever. As pastors, we stand in pulpits each week looking out at congregations carrying the weight of division, anxiety, and despair. We feel it ourselves. As Christians who worship in hope of a world good and beautiful and kind, we feel it, even as the world seems bent in so many places.
But Advent reminds us that bent worlds are precisely where God shows up.
When Luke introduces John the Baptizer, he meticulously lists the political powers of the day—Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod. It’s a world map of Roman oppression. Yet the word of God comes not to the palace but to the wilderness, not to the powerful but to a wild-eyed prophet eating locusts.
John appears quoting Isaiah, proclaiming that every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain made low, the crooked roads made straight.
The late, great jazz-and-blues singer Nina Simone used to perform to some of the most eclectic audiences anyone could gather. Inevitably, in her concerts, right before performing the gospel song “Children, Go Where I Send You,” Nina Simone would say: “Y’all ever been to a revival meeting? You don’t know what I’m talking about, do ya? Well, you in one now.”
The Gospel texts for Advent put us down in the middle of a revival. Not a revival of sentimentality or nostalgia, but a radical straightening of what has been bent.
John’s wilderness ministry offers us a framework—three essential movements in the work of unbending.
First, John calls us to name reality, a movement that the church calls repentance. This isn’t shallow happy-talk or toxic positivity. It’s the courage to see things as they truly are.
Hughes understood this. His poem continues:
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two—
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
John the Baptizer serves as that knife in service of God’s justice and peace. He speaks reality even when people don’t want to hear it.
And John calls us to listen carefully—to God and to all God’s people, especially those we’re tempted to dismiss. Jesus came to break down the walls that divide. Until we listen to those on the other side of the wall, until we hear their stories in and on their own terms, we cannot be who God means for us to be.
Seventy years ago this week, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a packed room in Montgomery, speaking words that still call us to attention: “There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed OUT of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”
What equipping do we need to really hear those words?
Finally, John calls us to trust God radically—with a vulnerability and meekness that runs counter to every cultural message about power and control. This means trusting God’s ability to be peace, living our lives caring about what truly matters, and refusing to be distracted by anything else.
The great pianist Ignace Paderewski was performing one day at a concert hall. A fidgety nine-year-old boy slipped from his mother’s side, climbed on stage, and began playing “Chopsticks” on the great piano. The crowd jeered. But hearing this, Paderewski rushed from backstage, stooped over the boy, reached around both sides, and began improvising a counter melody. As they played together, he whispered: “Keep going. Don’t quit. Keep on playing. Don’t quit. I’m right here…don’t quit!”
This is the Advent promise for followers of Jesus who feel overwhelmed by the work of unbending. We cannot compose the music of God’s harmonious creation on our own. At best, we’re playing chopsticks. But Jesus wraps his arms around us as we name reality, as we listen carefully, as we seek to unbend all that is out of shape. And all the while, Jesus is whispering: Keep going. Don’t quit.
How do we work with God to unbend our world? Word by word. Act by act. Church board meeting by church board meeting. Sermon by sermon. Visit by visit. Prayer by prayer.
The world is tired of waiting to become good and beautiful and kind. But Advent reminds us we’re not just waiting—we’re participating in the unbending, one small act of faithfulness at a time.
Questions for Reflection:
- What is “bent” in your life in this season?
- What equipping do you need to help “unbend the world?”
- What does the concept of revival mean to you? What in your life – or in the life of your faith community – is in need of revival?
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