'Waiting, Hope'

We don’t like to wait, do we? I mean, we Americans. And especially when it comes to Christmas.

Wait till the night of Dec. 24 to start celebrating Christmas? No way! So the Christmas catalogues started coming – when, the day after Labor Day? Then came the Christmas movies, some came out Nov. 4.

The Christmas radio stations: “Santa Baby” was “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” already a couple of weeks ago. And the TV specials are on: “Christmas in Rockefeller Center.” The list goes on.

And then there’s the Christmas shopping. Oh, the shopping! Can’t wait to get going on that! Black Friday specials! Gotta line up and camp out for the doorbusters at midnight! Can’t wait for that deal on the Xbox video game console! Gotta have it!

There’s this rush, this can’t-wait attitude toward Christmas – the world’s Christmas, at least. But it has also crept into the church, which ought to know better since we have the true Christmas to celebrate. Why, I even heard of a church that had its “Reason for the Season” event on Nov. 12! How ironic is that? “Reason for the Season,” yet they have it six weeks before the Christmas season begins.

By the way, the church’s Christmas, which is the real Christmas, since it’s about the birth of Christ, begins on the night of Dec. 24 and goes for 12 days – the Twelve Days of Christmas – up until Epiphany on Jan. 6.

For most Americans, though, the whole shootin’ match is over by the morning of Dec. 26. The trees get tossed out and the radio stations stop playing Christmas music, just as the real Christmas season gets going. Oh well.

Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year. We can’t wait for it. And so – problem – what to do with Advent? You see, Advent is all about waiting, and we don’t like to wait. Well, we could do like most people and ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist. But then we would be missing out on something, something that God has for us during this season that begins today. So today I am here to tell you, “Advent Is Worth the Wait.”

Advent is all about waiting. It’s a time of waiting, a whole season of waiting. But it’s not an empty waiting, like we’re supposed to spend it just twiddling our thumbs. No, the waiting we do is an active, thoughtful preparation. Advent is a season of preparing, which involves being attentive to what we’re doing while we wait and what it is – and who it is – we’re waiting for. Advent is about waiting. You can see it in the reading from Isaiah.

Advent, a time for prayerful, penitential reflection, enables us to take a good look at ourselves and to see our polluted garments, our dried-up-leaf status. We are left with nothing but to plead the Lord’s mercy, which is exactly where the Lord wants us to be. These weeks of waiting help us to do that. That’s why Advent is worth the wait.

So Advent is a season of waiting. “warm-up act,” if you will, getting the crowd ready for the main attraction about to come on the stage. John calling us to “make straight the way of the Lord,” as we wait for him to come. Mary herself had to wait, nine months from the time of the annunciation to the time of the birth. Christmas did not come without some waiting.

Friends, today I am encouraging you to take advantage of this season of waiting. God has a work to do in you this Advent. Don’t skip right over it, in a frenzy to rush onto Christmas. Let Advent be Advent first. I know you’ve got the world and the culture working against you. But let Advent be Advent. There’s some good stuff in store for you this season: Some reflective repentance. Some quiet prayer, away from the madness. Take some time for that. Preparation, to welcome your Lord appropriately, at Christmas and at his Second Coming. Patience, waiting patiently for the Lord to act, in his own time and in his own way, knowing that it is all for our best. That’s what Advent is about. And it is worth the wait.

Lauri Beach

Parish Worker

Sidney First United Methodist Church