Waiting for Christmas

Everyone is waiting for something or someone. We all carry around with us anticipation for some future time, event, or change in circumstances--the next job, "when I'm married," the next move, relief from current pain, a change in weather, the next holiday or vacation, etc. We are waiting beings, aren't we? Always in a state of holding with the thought of what comes next. What we wait for is directly correlated to what we hope in. As you wait for that next job, you do so in hope that it will bring you greater joy and fulfillment than the one you have. As you wait for the next stage of life, you do so with the earnest expectation that it will be different, or better, than the one you're in. Thus, we must be careful for that which we wait.

As I have studied the theme of hope this past year, I am convinced that hope is synonymous with waiting on the Lord. The Psalms are full of waiting and hoping.

I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope. (Psalm 130:5)

My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him. (Psalm 62:5)

That in which you place your hope is that which you long for, prepare for, make room for, listen for, look for, watch for, pray for.  As a young girl, I remember longing for that time when my older sister would return from boarding school or college. I knew she would return and I was fixated on that promise. The house was picked up, I cleaned my room (under orders from Mom, I'm sure), but I never just sat around and waited, for I knew the time would pass all the quicker if I kept busy doing something. Yet, even if I simply picked up a book to pass the time, it was always with a burning sense of waiting for the promise and expectation of her arrival to be fulfilled.

Advent is a season of waiting--anticipating, hoping, and longing for the arrival of the Messiah. At Christmas we celebrate this waiting by reflecting on the miracle of the God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, coming to earth in human form. As we wait to celebrate, we reflect and marvel at the promises He perfectly fulfills. All throughout Scripture people are waiting on the Lord and His arrival.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. (Luke 2:25) 

And there was a prophetess, Anna. . . . and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:36-38)

What joy it must have been to actually see the fulfillment of their lifetime of waiting and hoping!

As Christians, we are in a second season of advent--waiting for Christ's return--anticipating and preparing for that day in joy and urgency. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his advent book God is in the Manger, spends the first week focusing on the theme of waiting and inspired this reflection. He writes, "The Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth" (2). Christ is returning! The King is coming! Are you ready?

As human beings created in the image of God, we are made with a default mode to hope in/wait for someone. No exception. "For the greatest, most profound, tenderest things in the world, we must wait" (Bonhoeffer 4). I urge you to consider: Who (or what) are you waiting for? Who are you making room for? Christ is the only perfect fulfillment--make room this Christmas for Him!

"Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them and people who look up with reverence to the greatest in the world. Thus Advent can be celebrated only by those whose souls give them no peace, who know that they are poor and incomplete, and who sense something of the greatness that is supposed to come, before which they can only bow in humble timidity, waiting until he inclines himself toward us--the Holy One himself, God in the child in the manger. God is coming; the Lord Jesus is coming; Christmas is coming. Rejoice, O Christendom!" (Bonhoeffer 6).

How are you waiting for Christmas this year?