Waiting for things is part of life. Usually waiting for things we know will happen: water to boil, our Amazon package to arrive, etc. But other times waiting for things that don’t have a finish line or known outcome: Relationship repaired, our Kids to turn it around, things to change in your finances, etc.
The first kind of waiting reveals our impatience and desire for control. But the second kind of waiting is accompanied by suffering and reveals the deepest longings of our souls. We long for healing, wholeness, justice and belonging.
We may only think of Advent in the terms of the first kind of waiting- Dec 25th, our gifts
But Advent is actually much more about the second kind of waiting. In advent, we not only prepare to celebrate the way Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago, but we also wait for Christ to come again. Our deepest desires are given voice as we watch and wait for King Jesus to make all things right, once for all.
As Christians then, we are people in waiting. And this waiting forces us to admit that we are not the ones controlling the story. Initially we may resist this truth, but it is actually good news for us because what we need is so much greater than what we can make happen on our own. We need God to move in our areas of waiting!
When we can have this perspective, we find that waiting need not be an empty time at all. It is full of God’s presence, full of our deepest desires and full of opportunity to be Changed In the Waiting.
We find when we wait in this posture that the virtues of the Kingdom that we wait for begin to take shape in us. We take on the characteristics that we love and are willing to wait for. Things like Hope, Love, Joy and Peace, the hallmarks of God’s work in our lives are developed in us.
Today we look at Three truths about Advent Hope
1) Hope and Waiting go hand in hand
Because you can’t really hope for something that you already have, hope and waiting go hand in hand.
Romans 8:24-25 Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
There are complexities to the idea of hope. Complexities that our English word for hope doesn’t help us to grasp. But the Hebrew words qavah and yahal help us to better grasp. Alternatly translated as waiting or hope.
This seeming fluidity of definitions and word usages is because the concept of hoping and waiting, in Hebrew thought go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin.
2) Hope comes from the one we are waiting for and hoping in.
In both of these Hebrew words we find that waiting leads to hope only in reference to the one for who we wait. Without knowledge that the one on whom we wait can be trusted, the waiting is not hopeful at all.
Our hope comes from waiting on God who we know is trustworthy.
3) Hope is produced in us IN the waiting
Again, hope is not needed when we are not waiting (Romans 8:24-25)
God has made a way for hope in your life. You need not wait hopelessly. Jesus has become for us a living hope.
Hope is worked in us as we rely on God, as we wait on him as we open ourselves up to the reality that God is working in us in the waiting.
He is working in us through his Spirit in us and is transforming us in the process.
Just as it is the tension and pressure that turns coal into a diamond, will you invite God into your suffering to produce Hope in you as you wait on the ultimate hope, Jesus’ second coming when he makes all things new. He is a sure and steady foundation for your soul!