Children are not known for their patience and their ability to wait for things. We have all had that situation where a child asks from the back seat of a car, “are we nearly there yet?” They are often disappointed with the reply. On one occasion when we were getting ready to go out for a family party one of my children asked how long it was going to be before we got in the car to leave. I replied that it would be about another 30 minutes or so. I have remembered the response that came ever since; “Thirty minutes! But that’s like a year!”
Children may not be the best at waiting for things to happen, but I think that is also something that is becoming ever more true of us all. We now live in a world where we can pretty much do what we want to do, when we want to do it. We can jump in a car or on a bus and go and visit family and friends even considerable distances away. We can go to just about any shop and pick up what we want without having to wait for it to be ordered in. We can with the aid of the internet and with just a few clicks of the mouse select a Christmas present for a loved one and in many cases have it delivered the very next day. Whilst this may be good in many ways and on many different levels, the downside of all of this is that it can make us much less patient. So much so that if we can’t get what we want now, we feel let down and cheated.
We need then, a season like Advent to help us to re-focus and appreciate things in the right way. Advent helps us to slow down just a bit, (if we observe it properly) at a time when the world is falling head-long into “Christmas Fever” and wants it all to be here, now. One of the major themes of Advent is waiting, waiting expectantly for God to do something.
The Jewish people had waited centuries for the promised Messiah to appear, the one who would save them from their sins and would release them from bondage to the Roman State and make them feel free again. Like us, they didn’t always wait patiently and sometimes got it badly wrong. Eventually Jesus did come and they had to radically re-think and over-turn their previously held beliefs about what the Messiah would be like if they were going to follow him.
Advent is a similar time of waiting for us. Waiting to celebrate again the birth of Jesus, yes, but also a time of expectation for what is to come. For what is to come is not just the yearly celebrations of Christmas but the return of our Saviour to complete the work that God has begun in him. Our calling as Christians is to not only wait with patience, but also with a real sense of expectation that in God's good time, Jesus will return again and set us free from all that binds us. Until that happens, we wait with patience and expectation to celebrate his first coming again on Christmas Day.
With every blessing for the coming Christmas time.
Tim