Second Sunday of Advent: From Impatience to Holy Waiting

        

           “Wait for the Lord;

      be strong and take heart

     and wait for the Lord.”       

            -Psalm 27:14

Waiting. No one that I know likes to wait. Whether it is standing in a long checkout line during Christmas shopping or finding oneself stuck in a traffic jam, we usually find ourselves in a waiting situation much against our plans. If possible, we try to distract ourselves while the minutes tick away—texting being the most common method these days. If we are not able to find a suitable distraction, we simply go numb. Waiting, so often, is what we do against our will.

But what if waiting were a spiritual activity? What if waiting turned out to be God’s plan for our lives—not only for character development but for greater purposes than we are aware of at the time?

This is holy waiting. As well as cultivating patience in our lives, holy waiting molds us into God’s timing and purposes. Advent is a wonderful opportunity for such waiting. By following the church calendar we step out of the rush of our contemporary culture—with all its materialism and catering to immediate desires—and enter a holy rhythm. That rhythm of the church year begins the first Sunday of Advent, which continues for three more Sundays, preparing our hearts as we anticipate Christmas.

Instead of an instant but shallow satisfaction of singing Christmas carols on the first Sunday of Advent, we are called to again take the journey to Bethlehem, asking God to do whatever work he chooses in us in order to form us for fresh inner growth. The four-week wait of Advent stirs longing deep within us, so we appreciate the coming of Emmanuel on a whole new level.

Waiting is not easy. Our natural passions want fulfillment as soon as possible. Waiting enables us to deny those desires—at least for a time—so that our attention can move from the material to spiritual, from the outward-ness of our existence to the inner life of the soul. 

This Advent invites you and me to holy waiting. Will we embrace the discomfort to waiting in order to grow deeper in faith? Will we step away from busy distraction into a holy rhythm of anticipating Christ’s coming afresh into our lives?

© 2017 Glenn E. Myers