Advent: Waiting in Wonder

I promise that I didn’t do it on purpose. I was not snooping around, but one early December day many years ago, in a moment of mindless meddling around the house, I found it. My big Christmas gift that my parents tried to keep hidden until Christmas morning: a full-sized Voltron action figure, the envy of any elementary-aged boy in the 1980s. However, as much as I pleaded and begged, they would not let me play with it until Christmas morning. The toy was agonizingly within my grasp, but I had to wait. 

We are not very good at waiting. From fast food to microwavable meals and every time-shortening discovery in between, we are a people of instant gratification. The Bible, however, works on a different timeline, a timeline that runs directly counter to the idolatry of the immediacy we hold to tightly. We are called to be a people that wait.  

One can determine the worth of something by the length we are willing to wait for it. 90-minute line for Space Mountain? Not a problem. 90-minute line for McDonald’s? Hard pass. This is why I think that celebrating Advent above and beyond Christmas is beneficial for the Christian. Advent calls us to wait and, in waiting, reflect. The term Advent is derived from the Latin word meaning “about to happen.” It is the root of our modern term adventure. Adventures always have an element of waiting tied to them, that what is being sought or pursued is not immediately available. Think of Indiana Jones and the Ark.  

In celebrating Advent, which moves our focus from one day to four weeks of contemplation, we connect with the Old Testament saints in their waiting for the promised Messiah, a promise millennia in the making. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, states that God, in the fullness of time, sent forth His Son to redeem those under the curse of the law. That fullness of time is a play off the natural pregnancy mentioned by Jesus being born of a woman. Babies are born when they are ready. In the same sense, Jesus was born when God was ready. If Christmas is a celebration of the birth, by analogy, Advent is the celebration of the waiting of pregnancy.  

But the Israelites did not wait nine months. God asked them to endure the waiting for a promise that started in the Garden when God said a seed would eventually end the curse of sin. A promise echoed by Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah. A promise held by a people through slavery and exile. A promise fulfilled by a tiny baby in a stable.  

The toy I waited for was a mere plastic representation of a concept from a TV show, a thing to be played with and discarded after some time. The Messiah Israel waited for was nothing less than God Incarnate, come in the flesh. C.S. Lewis wrote, “Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.” The Infinite contained in the finite; the Creator contained in a cradle.  

The worth of something is directly related to our willingness to wait for it. Thus, this Christmas season, rather than letting Christmas Day come and go with presents and family, take the time to wait, purposefully and thankfully. In doing so, we connect with the Old Testament saints in their wait for a Messiah as well as all the New Testament saints in our current wait for Christ to come again, to bring forth His Kingdom in full glory. 

God followed through on His initial promise in the form of a helpless Child; we can be sure that He will be faithful to His promise of Jesus coming again in the form of a conquering King. 

Just you wait.  

By: Dr. Mitch Evans, NRCA Senior Bible Instructor 

Soli Deo Gloria