#19 The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

I'm pretty terrible with Christmas presents. At least, I'm pretty terrible about waiting when it comes to Christmas presents. As soon as I get a present for someone, I just want to give it to them right away. This works okay with my parents and my sister because I don't often see them until right before Christmas. But the anticipation of giving Tess her present feels like it about kills me every year. I have the same problem to a lesser extent with presents for me. Once I see that they're wrapped, I just want to open them. Waiting is sooo difficult, but somehow the waiting makes things better. The building anticipation makes the celebration even more delightful than if it just came whenever I wanted it. And the time just needs to be right. Gifts can't be exchanged until work is done so that there's time to enjoy them.

In this season of Advent, we talk a lot about waiting. We remember how God's people waited for years and years for Jesus, the promised Messiah, to come. And we ourselves eagerly wait for Jesus to come again to complete His work, to finish off death and evil and pain and suffering, to bring the fullness of peace, justice, joy, and His presence among us. It's pretty difficult to look around our broken world and not be ready for Jesus to come back. It's pretty difficult to get a taste of peace and justice and not desire the full experience when Jesus returns. (In fact, if we don't wholeheartedly long for Jesus to return, we really need to take a deep look inside ourselves to make sure we haven't fallen into idolatry.) And yet we're still waiting. For nearly 2000 years we've waited. It doesn't totally make sense to me. But I think we need to trust that the waiting will make Jesus' return even better. Somehow all of our years of anticipation will make our eventual satisfaction even sweeter. The time must not be right quite yet. The work that Jesus is doing here and now through His Spirit and in and through His people must not be complete quite yet. So for now we wait. We enjoy the incomplete but still wonderful joy Jesus gives us now. We work to share the comfort and love that Jesus gives us through the things we say and do. And we cling to the hope of Jesus' promise: "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Grace and peace,
BMH