Last Sunday, a leader stood before a congregation in a chapel and announced that the following Sunday would mark the start of Advent, a season of waiting for Christmas. We were thus waiting last Sunday to begin an official period of waiting a week later (today). It was an announcement of a coming announcement about the most anticipated announcement of all: the birth of Jesus, a long-awaited promise of God fulfilled.
Though it was almost a simple calendar reference to keep the church informed, there was something deep and real in the moment. Praise welled up in me: “Yes, Lord! You kept that promise, and you’re still keeping them. In my own tense personal season, you’ve been at work, even though I’m still waiting to see signs that solutions are coming, that the end of this long, shapeless wait is at last in sight.”
Advent has a logical flow that the rest of life doesn’t have. Entering the Advent waiting period is possible because Jesus already came. We can identify the timing of his birth well enough (even with imprecision) that we can agree on a date for commemorating it. Because of that event, we can count backwards to know when to begin the official season of remembrance and anticipation. Just as we did last Sunday, we can wait to begin a season of waiting together, knowing the date on which the waiting will end.
The rest of life doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes it does. We can know that something we anticipate is scheduled for a specific moment. My youngest son is planning to be married on May 25th. That’s a date for which we are waiting. We are in an advent season, one could say, in preparation for the coming of that known date and time.
Other anticipated moments are not scheduled. We believe that they will happen, but they are as yet not on the calendar. We wait to hear, for example, whether an engaged couple has set a date, when the mortgage company has scheduled the closing, or when our package on back-order will arrive on our doorstep. We’re relieved when a date is announced at last so that we know how long we will have to endure the lack of resolution.
That waiting is hard enough, but vague ambiguity is harder. Silence is even worse. Sometimes in life, we don’t get the comfort of a date on the calendar. We wait in murky ambiguity. Is the couple really sure about getting married? Will the loan get approved? Is my package lost in the mail forever, and will I ever get my money back? Why is customer service not returning my call? How long will I be waiting on hold?
Last Sunday, I was encouraged about that last kind of waiting, the least pleasant kind. I was reminded not only of the faithfulness of our God, who cares about our circumstances. He cares about the needs of my life and the practical solutions for which I’m trusting him. I know they matter to him. That’s an old and familiar certainty.
But what bubbled up in me as fresh joy last Sunday was gratitude for his unfailing goodness even when there is still no date on the calendar for when he will make his appearance into that murk. In some areas, I feel as far from that turnaround as the congregation last Sunday: not quite ready to start the countdown to a promise fulfilled. Through seasons of waiting upon seasons of waiting (none of which make much sense to me), I ask like the psalmist, “How long, O Lord, how long?” I’m guessing others probably know exactly how this bewilderment feels.
Yet God has prepared me (against my fickle preferences and awareness) for the ambiguous, drawn-out, no-answers-in-sight, long-haul. In the quiet, he has been keeping his other promises: building my ability to endure, to hope, to forgive, to defy wrongdoing, to advocate. He continues to turn the stubborn soil. He forms in me a fertile field for his cultivation of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. All of this he has been diligent to do even while I am, in a sense, waiting to be better at waiting–that is, when I am still just oatmeal inside and not quite firm enough for the holy confidence that it takes to wait really well for a little longer.
So this past week, as I have looked forward to the looking-forward of Advent, I have celebrated his good grace that enables me to trust him, and I’ll remember during these coming weeks that God fulfills his promises, just as he did with the birth of Messiah, Jesus, and just as he will do again when Jesus returns in loving reign. What about the practical solutions that I hope he will provide for me in his timing? And what about the discomfort and uncertainty and inadequacy in me that I hope he will shape into maturity?
I can wait. He’ll come through.
VIBRANCY 