As Christians, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with a time of waiting we call Advent.
I am trying to wait expectantly. There is a difference between the edgy, impatient of the busy person who wonders shy the person before them in the queue cannot find their purse, and the waiting of a couple with a baby on the way. They wait actively, preparing for the gift of their child, going to antenatal classes, decorating a room, buying a cradle and a pram, already making space in their lives for the one who is to come. This is waiting which is open to a gift.
Waiting expectantly for the coming of Christ – at Christmas, the end of one’s life, or at the end of time – is not a matter of getting things done. We prepare ourselves to welcome a gift. We try to live now as those to whom is given the world of God’s peace and joy. Saint Paul says that we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
So the waiting of Advent is a waiting of trust, of trust in a God who is with us, in a God who will emerge in our lives. Let us take whatever need we have, whatever good desire we have, whatever hope we have, and entrust it to God’s care. Let us believe that God will take our request and act upon it.
Let us try to live these days of Advent in the firm conviction that, however God acts, however our life unfolds, the outcome that God will bring about is well waiting for.
