Learning to Wait

Photo Credit: Mira Bozhko on Unsplash

by Joan Kelley

This week marks the 2^nd week of Advent.  We continue to reflectively wait for the birth of Christ as we follow Mary and Joseph to the manger.  We wait with expectant hope for Christ’s return and reign over all the Earth.  And finally we actively wait in the present moment and acknowledge Christ as Emmanuel – Christ with us.  The simple yet profound power of Advent is we are learning to wait past, present and future in God’s story and in our own.

“Advent, meaning “the coming,” is a time when we wait expectantly. Christians began to celebrate it as a season during the fourth and fifth centuries. Like Mary, we celebrate the coming of the Christ child, what God has already done. And we wait in expectation of the full coming of God’s reign on earth and for the return of Christ, what God will yet do. But this waiting is not a passive waiting. It is an active waiting. As any expectant mother knows, this waiting also involves preparation, exercise, nutrition, care, prayer, work; and birth involves pain, blood, tears, joy, release, community. It is called labor for a reason. Likewise, we are in a world pregnant with hope, and we live in the expectation of the coming of God’s kingdom on earth. As we wait, we also work, cry, pray, ache; we are the midwives of another world.” 

--Shane Claiborne

Reflection Question:

• How might God be inviting you to actively wait in new ways in His Story – past, present, future?

Scripture:

Luke 2

Prayer:

Father thank you for the incredible gift of your son. Help us to pause in these next few weeks of Advent and take in a fuller perspective of the Story as we learn to wait together with You.  Amen