"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."
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in God is in the Manger
It's that time of year again—what the songs describe as "the most wonderful time of year." The time of year when we deck the halls, attend parties and plays, wrap presents, and bake cookies. It's the Christmas season.
For believers, this season is a time of remembrance and celebration. We call these weeks leading up to Christmas "Advent." The word "advent" is derived from a Latin word meaning “coming” or “arrival.” These weeks are a time of anticipation. Of expectation and preparation and looking forward to something hoped for. It's a time to rejoice over God's goodness and faithfulness in fulfilling his promise to redeem us from sin. It's a time to dwell on the incarnation of Christ and what it means that our Savior was born to die.
What this means is, Advent is a time of waiting.
I don’t know about you, but I spend much of my life waiting for something: for the light to change, for a response to my text or email, for the nurse to call my name. I wait for hard things, like answers to medical tests and for good things, like a vacation to start. I wait for dreams to come true and for prayers to be answered.
Really, the Christian life is one of waiting. We live in the in-between, a time between Christ's ascension and his promised return. We wait for Christ to come again and make all things new. We wait for his glory to be revealed and his promises fulfilled. We wait for eternity where we will live forever worshiping our Savior.
To be honest, I’m not the best at waiting. I am impatient. I want time to speed things up and for things happen. I want things to take place on my time table, according to my plan. This means I often look at waiting as wasted time—time that could be used doing other things. I don’t see waiting as productive and important in and of itself. I treat it like a no-man's land, a purgatory of sorts between where I've been and where I want to go.
However, the Bible encourages waiting and speaks of it as a positive thing, particularly a specific kind of waiting: waiting on the Lord.
"The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (Lam. 3:25-26).
"From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him" (Is. 64:4).
“Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Ps. 27:4).
Waiting doesn't mean not doing anything. It doesn't necessarily entail idleness or sitting still. In the Bible, waiting is a posture of the heart. It's a humble reliance upon the One who rules all things and holds all things together. It's living out the knowledge that God is good and faithful and will always be so. Biblical waiting requires hope and trust in our steadfast God.
These days of Advent remind us that waiting is a good thing. As we spend time this season remembering God’s promises in the Old Testament and how they were fulfilled in the New, we see how God works in the waiting. We see how God is faithful and always keeps his promises. We see that he meets his people’s needs at just the right time. And that his Word always comes to pass.
In the passage above from Lamentations, waiting is described as "the soul who seeks him." This means there is work to be done in our waiting, important soul work. While we wait for the Lord to move in our life, to answer our prayers, to return again in glory, we are to seek him. We seek him through prayer and through his word. We seek him by looking for his glory—by being alert and aware to his work in this world. By seeing his hand of providence in all things.
And we wait for him with hope. Like a child on Christmas Eve who can't fall asleep, excited for Christmas morning, we wait for our Father with great expectation. We anticipate the good things he will do. We do so because we know the character and ways of the One for whom we wait.
Yes, waiting can be hard. But it’s the way of life for a Christian. As we practice a brief season of waiting this Advent season, may it remind us what it looks like to live out a life of waiting. For we wait on a good and faithful God.
Photo by Laura Nyhuis on Unsplash
