Actively Waiting

It’s time to sit around and wait. Well, if the hurry, rush, and business of the holiday season gave us the option to sit around. Regardless, we are just entering a time of waiting. It is a time of preparation. It is a time of anticipating. It is a time to reflect on what is yet to come. We are not all that good at waiting. We like to fill in the time with things to do, people to see, and places to go. I tend to carry at least one book with me to occupy myself when I know there is a high chance that I will be waiting.

Advent, however, is not quite the same as sitting around the doctor’s office in anticipation of my appointment, awaiting the doctor’s return after a review of my chart, of sitting in line awaiting blood work. Advent’s waiting has more to do with getting myself ready along the lines of training for a marathon, prepping for an exam, or preparing for the coming of a baby.

We await our celebration of Jesus’ birth, yet we likewise live in the expectation of Christ’s return and our joining God in a heavenly reality we can only vaguely grasp. The waiting of Advent is preparation like that of the farmer getting his fields ready for spring planting. It is like the waiting of a chef getting the kitchen in order in anticipation of what will come out of the oven. It is like the waiting of a teenager picking out what to wear to the prom, a bride planning her wedding, or an architect drafting the design for a new construction.

This waiting is work. It is anticipation. It is life-consuming. It is challenging. It is full of action, purpose, planning, and execution of those plans. If we are preparing for the coming of Messiah in celebration of Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ return, our waiting is not sitting by idly. It is a period of active reflection. It is a period of ministry. It is a period of building community. It is a period of doing the work of allowing God’s grace, love, and joy to flow through our lives as we anticipate the larger fulfillment of God’s presence coming into our world.

So, maybe waiting is not really the right word. Advent is living the reality we anticipate. It is making that future we anticipate a present reality even as we expect a greater fulfillment down the road. We can do more than sit around awaiting the coming fulfillment of God’s presence and fullness. We can begin to live into that coming reality, for to some extent, it is as we lean into that future reality that it begins to make its presence known already.

This Advent let us await the fulfillment of God’s coming presence, even as we make God’s presence more fully known. We are not called to idleness but to active reflection. Christ has come. Christ is here. Christ is coming again. We can live all of those realities as one.


— ©Copyright 2019, Christopher B. Harbin

http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gospel Is Not Conservative

Image
Fundamentalism and conservativism are intrinsically averse to change. They are tied with conserving a status quo or moving back to a former era. They seek a safe place, a respite from change and transformation in the world around them. They are threatened by new ideas. They fear that the foundations on which they base their lives will be uprooted, causing their view of reality to fall apart. Growth depends on change. Life requires change. Survival depends on responding to changes in our environment. It requires new ideas. It requires new answers to old questions, as well as new questions with even newer answers. Jesus was by no means conservative. Jesus challenged the status quo. He fought against the groundwork of much of the religious thought around him, as well as the structures erected to empower its values. He called out those who benefited from social, religious, and political power. He demonstrated God's love, forgiveness and grace to those deemed una...
Read more

God in the Hands of Angry Sinners

Image
Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” set a very poor direction for much of Christianity in the Colonies. His Puritan tradition presented God as an essentially angry deity whose desire was to condemn and torture. Grace or mercy existed simply in regard to how long God waited until calling down judgment upon sinners. That is not good news. It never was. Such is not the message of Jesus whom the gospel writers claim as good news. They echo the words of the celestial messengers declaring Jesus’ birth as good news of great joy to all peoples. Rather than look to Jesus as the clearest example of God’s identity, character, and will, that tradition surrounding Edwards began with an altogether different understanding that could not account for what Jesus actually taught. The Puritan perspective began with angry sinners and projected that upon God. Anger begins with fear, uncertainty, discomfort, and the inability to control one’s environment, ot...
Read more

Our Language of Choice

Image
I woke up this morning and decided to be a woman. I really like the idea of earning less money on the job. I like the idea of being passed over for promotions. I like that I will be held more accountable for the care of my home and familial responsibilities than any of the men around me. I’m looking forward to having my expertise ignored. I like that I’ll more likely be treated as a lower-level assistant to male colleagues than an actual colleague. It should be a good experience to live as more of a target for domestic violence and abuse. It will be so freeing to let go of my bodily autonomy and place it in the hands of men who will not understand me. With so many voices in our society shifting back toward the attitudes of 70 years ago, I am really looking forward to setting aside all trappings of male privilege and power to live as a second class citizen whose voice and opinions are essentially irrelevant. Just look at all the advantages women have! They get t...
Read more