Reflecting on "Godot's" Advent

Two men under a bare tree wait for someone who never arrives. A boy brings yesterday’s message—“not today, perhaps tomorrow”—and the stage resets. That is Beckett’s world: time without promise, motion without destination, words to keep the silence from swallowing the scene.

Advent stands under its own bare tree and says something different. Camus helps us name the posture: revolt—not rage, but a lucid, compassionate “no” to meaninglessness and a stubborn “yes” to human dignity and shared life. “I rebel—therefore we are.” Advent answers: we rebel with a candle in our hands because Light has already entered the night.

Tillich says our deepest struggle is with Becket's meanginglessness. Against meaninglessness he sets not bravado but the courage to be: the self’s quiet, durable self-affirmation in spite of nonbeing. He insists that this courage is not something we manufacture. It is received. It is the strength to accept that we are accepted by the God beyond the God of our knowing when our old pictures of God cannot carry the weight when we are weary from waiting.

Waiting and revolt

  • Beckett: Waiting curls back into itself; “on” means only surviving another act.
  • Camus: Revolt refuses consent to this absurd; a clear “no/yes” lived in solidarity.
  • Tillich: Courage revolts against meaninglessness. You can say Pozzo's "On” to the neighbor—and to your own existence—you are held by a deeper "On" than your own.  Emmanuel.  God with us.
  • Advent: This "On" has a name and a history. Memory leans into promise; candles light our way in the darkness.  

Small signs

  • Beckett: A few leaves between acts underline futility.
  • Camus: Each honest act is resistance.
  • Tillich: Each honest act is a participation in Being itself. Courage is not solo heroism; it draws life from a source beneath us.
  • Advent: So a tiny flame is more than theater. It is revolt and sacrament—defiance grounded in grace.

The self under pressure

  • Beckett: Speech masks the void; no one moves.
  • Camus: We move anyway, together, without lying about the night.
  • Tillich: When anxiety unmakes us, courage says, “Nevertheless, I am.” Not because we are strong, but because the One who is upholds us. In Tillich’s sermon words: “You are accepted.” Advent is that acceptance wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Direction

  • Pozzo: “Where are you going?” “On.” (But never actually moving)
  • Camus: “On”—together, without surrendering the human, "On" as resistance.
  • Tillich: “On”—God bears your "On;" your going is upheld before you even understand the map.
  • Advent: “On”—to Bethlehem, to the coming we await, choosing hope rather than futility.

I wonder if this is how the three converse in the church’s December:

  • Becket honestly names our condition.
  • Revolt gives us a clear, humane no to the void and a shared yes to the neighbor.
  • Courage lets us keep saying that no/yes pointlessness presses hard.
  • Advent locates both revolt and courage in a story: the Ground of Being has a face; the accepting Love has taken on flesh; the Yes has entered history and will come again.

Advent does not cancel Beckett’s ache; it refuses to let the ache be the last word. It does not deny Camus’ clarity; it baptizes it. And it receives Tillich’s gift: courage is not a mood but a grace—we are enabled to be, to hope, to act, because Christ has come.

So when the Vladimir of your life asks, “Where are you going?” you can answer without swagger and without despair: On. On—with revolt that protects the human, with the courage to be that accepts acceptance, with a candle that does not explain the dark but keeps it from owning you. On—toward the Child who is the Ground beneath your feet, the "On" beneath your "On", the Coming we await.

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