Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and “The Journey of the Magi” by T.S. Eliot are favorites of mine. Once I discovered the later poem, especially in my college and early 20 years, every Christmas I would read and re-read it to roommates, friends, co-workers and one longsuffering mom.

My husband has the same love for Eliot’s works and would go to a small public library across the street from Biola University where he was a student to check out cassette tapes of the poet reading his "Four Quartets" over and over.

This Christmas, “The Journey of the Magi” captures some of the feelings perhaps hiding among all the merry and bright of the season.

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.

This was not written by one of the three kings from orient far, but by an exhausted Magi worn out and unsure of where this journey was headed. Like me. My husband and I have been in a long season of an unanswered prayer that, if I were in charge, would have been answered a long time ago. And friends of ours are experiencing what seems like unanswered prayers bigger than ours--war in Ukraine, persecution in Nigeria, the untimely death of a too-young daughter. What has happened to that Kindergarten Mom from years ago whose husband came from China to study at Wheaton Graduate School and moved back to China?

Is God hearing prayer? Why doesn't. he answer in our timeframes? Why do we have to light four candles before we get to the Christ candle?

I wonder if Zechariah and Elizabeth thought the same thing. Luke 1:6 describes both as “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord,” and then the blunt, language of verse seven: “But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were in advanced in years.” They couldn't blame themselves for something they had done or left undone. Their prayer was unanswered.

Righteous, blameless, barren Elizabeth was in a long season of unanswered prayer when the angel appeared not to her, but to Zechariah, announcing that their prayer had been heard. And righteous, blameless Zachariah points out his and Elizabeth’s advanced years again. Wasn’t it folly to think that they would be parents now, in their advanced years? And even in his question, was there impatience, doubt, wondering about the journey?

Eliot’s Magi thought similar things.

A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

In seasons of unanswered prayer, in times of waiting, it’s tempting to think it’s all folly. I should just stop praying but stopping would be putting myself in charge again. I obviously know God’s going to answer. Maybe he already ihas. Why think otherwise? It makes sense to me that Zechariah asked the angel, “How shall I know this?” From his perspective, the prayer had already been answered with a no, not even a maybe so, just no. He was mistaken. God was working far beyond his prayer requests.

From the angel Gabriel’s perspective, however, the understandable human question made no sense at all. The prayer was about to be answered, the long anticipated promised about to be fulfilled, and it left Zechariah speechless, and rightly so. God’s answers to our prayers ought to leave us speechless because he is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). It is now tongue-loosed Zechariah who speaks of tender mercy, forgiveness of sins, light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

This Advent, I celebrate a season of prayer, answered, unanswered, about to be answered. I have speech still, words to speak, to name names, to sing my own song of the wonder of the second candle lit.