Waiting

What are you waiting for?

I have to say, when I saw the question, and posed it to myself, I realized that I rarely wait for anything. Children wait for the arrival of Christmas morning, even if only to open presents. But there is a sense of excruciating longing; a terrible and joyful suspense. What do I wait for during Christmas?

Advent is a season of longing. A reminder of Him for whom we wait. I read again last night of Simeon, he who "was waiting for the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25). It's difficult to say how many times I've read this passage. But one simple fact has either eluded me or gone without it due notice: Simeon had spoken with God. "It had been revealed to him that he would not die before he saw the promised Messiah" (v. 26). As a result of this, he was waiting.

We fuss and fume when we have to wait in line. We rage and roar when we are made to wait behind the slow car as we try to race to our destination. I think we view waiting as a chore, a pain, a nuisance.

But I remember a time, during the Christmas season, when I was filled with a longing expectation as I waited. And it was past my childhood days of waiting for presents to be opened. I remember waiting during Christmas, 1999. Everytime I hear the Carpenters sing, "Merry Christmas, darling. We're apart, it's true..." I recall being apart from my fiance during that season. Our wedding was only days away, but instead of being together, we went our separate ways to make preparations for our new life to begin.

"Don't you understand, I already have a plan: I'm waiting for my real life to begin" (Coling Hay). Do we wait and long for heaven? Do we wait to be reunited with Jesus? When I was apart from Heather that Christmas, I thought about her daily and worked each day to take care of the list we created: get a job, find a place to live, etc. Am I this way with Jesus? Am I earnestly working to serve him, store up treasures in heaven, take care of the things he's asked me to--all in preparation for my new life to begin? As with Simeon, have we heard from God and believed the Good News of his first coming, and so wait for his anticipated return? I read recently of a woman who said, when asked if she liked the play she was attending, "I don't want to be here. If Jesus were to come back, I don't want him to find me a in a theater. I want to be praying to him, or caring for others." Do we wait for Jesus with that devotion? And while we long for Jesus, and long for heaven, are we like Simeon in his responsiveness to God? "Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts..." (Luke 2: 27). Are we listening for the voice of God to come again and guide us as we live? Are we listening--and obeying--what God has already said? Christmas is often a blessed time because people remember what they forget for the remainder of the year: "If you have two cloaks, give to the person with none. If you have food, do likewise;" "Do not merely say, 'I wish you well! Stay warm and well fed!' and do nothing." I know I was convicted this morning--to live without waiting is to be "like a man who gazes into the mirror of his own reflection, then walks away and immediately forgets what he looks like."

So what are you waiting for? Are you waiting for the church to be more compassionate and others-centered? Are you waiting for the church to leave its corporate model, stop spending unnecessary money and running endless programs? Are you waiting for change? Stop waiting. Be the change you wish to see. I choose instead to wait upon the Lord Jesus, eagerly anticipating his return and working to be about his business when he returns. Maranatha.