WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR
We are more than halfway through the Advent season. (where does the time go?) As I mentioned last week, Advent means “coming” or “the coming” and sometimes “to come.” We are in a season of expectation that something is going to happen.
We are waiting.*
So, what is it we are waiting for?
If I asked this in the context of a Kids’ Message, the kids would shout unanimously “JESUS!”
And they would be right, of course.
We are waiting to celebrate that God’s unfathomable expression of Love entered into the world as a tiny human infant at precisely the right time.
We celebrate Jesus’ birth (with birthday cake and sometimes candles!) and so in one sense what I think we’re celebrating
is the end of our waiting.
Messiah, the One God’s people had been waiting so very long for, has arrived.
True, Messiah did not arrive in the kind of packaging folks were expecting. Nor did Messiah save in the way folks were expecting.
[God’s plan was so much better than anything they could have asked for or imagined]. (or we could ask for or imagine).
Even so, if we’re honest, there are some really big things we’re still waiting for.
Like the end of this blasted pandemic. And poverty.
We are waiting for justice.
Healing.
Wholeness.
World peace.
Acceptance.
Equality.
(you have a list, too, I’m sure)
Christ, our Messiah, has come. But things are not perfect.
Yet.
Because here’s the really amazing thing: Christ will come again. (that was the plan all along)
And when he does we are promised there will beno more death, sadness, crying or pain.
Then we’ll celebrate the end of our waiting…forever!
In the meantime, we celebrate that Jesus was born. Christ has come!
And that means
We celebrate the end-of-our-waiting-alone.
[‘Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”)’ Matthew 1:23, The Message].
❤
Cathy