Advent 1

So often waiting is hard for us to do.  Although we British are deemed to be a nation of people who queue, waiting is not something we do with patience (just look at the people waiting for a bus in Oxford Street). We want instant access to many things. Instant Accounts. Instant Coffee (yuck). And sometimes when we seek patience our prayer is "God give me patience and give me it now."

But in God's Kingdom we are called to wait. It is in His time and not ours and we see that amazing phrase "in the appointed time." Not before or after but in the time appointed God sent Jesus into the world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his writing "Celebrating Advent" says:

"Celebrating Advent means being able to wait. Waiting, however, is an art that our impatient age has forgotten... We must wait for the greatest, most profound, most gentle things in the world; nothing happens in a rush, but only according to the Divine Laws of germination and growth and becoming."

Advant calls us to stand still for a while, to pause in the midst of the hussle and bussle and to think and reflect. It is the almost but not quite - the waiting for the Christ. We wait for the birth of the Baby at Christmas but we also await the return of Christ when all will see Him. The Bible paints a picture of a waiting people - in the Old Testament people wait for the promise to be fulfilled. It all points to the Messiah coming, yet when He arrives, His birth is almost unnoticed only a few hear the song of the angels.

In the shops Christmas is upon us (and has been for some months) but the significance of the message is gone for so many. the song of the Angel is lost above the clamour of the pushing and shoving for a bargin. Christmas  is a great holiday or a time to feel good, a bit of birghtness in the midst of the dark and dreery days but it is so much more if we will but listen. 

Bonhoeffer again writes in "This reversal of all things"

"If we want to be part of these events, Advent and Christmas, we cannot just sit there like a theatre audience and enjoy all the lovely pictures. instead, we ourselves will be caught up in this action, this reversal of all things: we must  become actors on this stage. For this is a play in which each spectator has a part to play, and we cannot hold back. What will our role be? Worshipful shepherds bending the knee, or kings bringing gifts? What is being enacted when Mary becomes the mother of God, when God enters the world in a lowly manger? We cannot come to this manger in the same way that we would approach the cradle of any other child. Something will happen to each of us who decides tocome to Christ's manger. Each of us will have been judged or redeemed before we go away. Each of us will either break down, or come to know that God's mercy is turned toward us.... What does it mean to say such things about the Christ Child?... It is God, the Lord and Creator of all things, who becomes so small here, comes to us in a little corner of the world, unremarkable and hidden away, who wants to meet us and be among us as a helpless, defenseless child."

So will Christmas be worth the wait?

Well lets use Advent wisely and as a time of hope and expectation, and may we meet afresh the Christ Child in our lives and in our land.