On Waiting

The season of Advent is a time of anticipation and waiting. For the four weeks leading up to Christmas Day, when we get to finally and fully celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ into the world, the Church Calendar invites us to slow down and wait.

During this period, many churches and Christian homes light advent wreaths (four candles around a wreath with a fifth in the middle). One candle is lit each week as the season rolls along, with the middle candle reserved for the arrival of the Christ Child on Christmas. Each time a new candle is lit, anticipation expands. The period between each new candle is a time of waiting.

In our lives there are flashes of anticipation, when a new spark is lit in our spirit and we become excited for what is to come. The longer periods though are ones of waiting. During those times, we wait for God to work in our favor. For a blessing to pour out on us.

Sometimes the wait for the presence of God to arrive can be agonizingly slow, even painfully so. We see the world spinning around us with all sorts of injustices taking place and God seemingly silent. We ask ourselves, why the wait? Where is God in the silence?

There is no easy—and perhaps not even a perfectly right—answer to these questions. We ask them nonetheless because that is what we should do as Christ followers: ask questions and wait for the Lord to answer. We see this in the Gospel writings. The disciples of Jesus ask him questions all the time. A few times Jesus answers them directly; however, more often than not, he responds with a parable (a puzzling story) or reverses the situation and asks them a question on top of the question that was originally asked. In these moments, the wait for a direct answer continues…

Advent is not about the rush of the arrival. (Spoiler: advent means arrival.) It is about the waiting and waiting and waiting, with temporary moments of eager anticipation. We are being nudged in this season to embrace the wait. To not rush Christmas morning and to instead recall the “long awaited” portion of the Jesus story. How people waited for the Christ to come for a long time. And how we wait for Christ to come again, no matter how long it is.