I have been told they expected a king, someone like David I suppose. Yet, I am not so sure I believe what I have been told. Who knows what they expected, or even IF they expected anything.
What if they expected nothing? It would mean that individuals were doing what individuals have done throughout history; they were running around trying to live lives, put food on the table and procreate. No one even thought to wait for Jesus. If so, Jesus was unanticipated and unexpected--a messiah only in retrospect. Such a possibility of unexpecting turns Advent from a time of expectation of the known, desired and needed into a time of waiting for nothing at all.
Expectation is a lot like Disneyland; a place that both exists and does not. We believe in a dream and only when we visit in the heat of summer with screaming kids do we realize that the dream exists only in our heads. This realization can pull us one of two ways: either, we see the dream for the farce it is and embrace reality on its own terms, or we hold onto the dream, scream at the summer and hate the kids thinking they are what keeps us from the reality of the dream.
Expectation binds us to a vision of a nonexistent reality. An Advent that looks toward Jesus in the manger binds us to just that: Jesus in the manger. Maybe you want to be fastened tightly to your expectations, but how might your life be untied if you expected nothing this Advent?
