Waiting in Advent

Good morning Ladies!  I hope you all are well!  Welcome to the Advent season!  What a fun time it is, with the Christmas music, lights, and gifts!

If you have your Bible, please open to the book of Luke.

As we enter this season, we can reflect on many things.  We can remember the generosity of God in our lives – the blessings He has given us already and the blessings that are to come.  We can rest in God’s promises – the ones that He has fulfilled and the ones yet to be fulfilled.  We can stand in awe of the mystery of God – how He is omnipresent – everywhere at all times - and omniscient – knows all all the time – and we can be humbled by this.  Humility helps us to be still and rest in God’s sovereignty – His ability to rule over us and this world – and it allows us to trust in His ways, His plans, and His timing.  Because when I realize I am small, then I can truly believe God is big.  When I realize I am weak, then I can truly believe God is strong.

The word advent actually means “coming”.  That is, Jesus is coming.  Somewhere between 6 and 4 B.C. – so four to six years before Christ was born, the Jewish people were waiting.  They were waiting for a Messiah – a promised deliverer.   The Roman government had taken over Israel, and they were oppressed by this powerful government.  They anticipated that a messiah would free them as a people.  They knew their savior was coming, but they didn’t know when.  So they waited in anticipation.

And then, as Galatians 4:4 says, “When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His son, born of a woman, born under the law”.  When the fullness of time had come.  Other versions says, “When the right time came”, “When the set time had fully come”.  Looking back now, historians and scholars can see that many things had taken place in that time, prophecy had been fulfilled, and the time was perfect for Jesus to arrive.  But for the Jews at the time, they did not know what hour He would come, or how he would a appear.  They just had to wait patiently.  And, maybe even more importantly, they had to wait expectantly.

Read Luke 1:5 – 25

In this reading we meet Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were “righteous in God’s eyes”.  They like their Jewish brethren were waiting for the messiah, but they also had no children.  I’m sure they had waited for a child many times in their lives.  Trying, expecting, waiting, only to be left waiting again.  What strikes me here is that even in their waiting, and surely in their disappointment, they did not stray from God or His ways.  They did not let their impatience and their sadness embitter them toward the Lord – instead they remained steadfast and endured in their righteousness, until they saw a miracle.  How many times in our lives are we set into a season of waiting, and instead of being like Zechariah and Elizabeth, we let our own wants and our impatience get in the way of the path God has laid out for us?  Why do we so easily forget that God is in control and that He has perfect timing?  Why do we instead try to takes matters into our own hands?  We forget that patience is a fruit of the spirit – a product of a life deeply intertwined with faith in Jesus – and instead of letting God come when the time is perfect, we tell God that we are done waiting.

Psalm 27:13 & 14 says, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. 14Wait for the LORD; Be strongand let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.”

Read Luke 1:26 – 37

And so, like the Israelites, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, and like Mary waited, we now celebrate their waiting in this Advent season, but we also celebrate that their waiting had come to an end, and when God saw that His time was perfect, He brought them (and us) a savior.  Although the Israelites thought this savior would bring them out of bondage in the political sense, we realize that God’s deliverance was much more than that for them, for us, and for all people.  We celebrate that nothing is impossible with God.  That when we trust Him with our lives, when we trust Him enough to wait on Him and not grow impatient and try to take matters into our own hands, His way will prove to be better than ours and we will be blessed because of it.  And, we also celebrate the season of waiting that we are in now, waiting for Jesus to return a second time and take us home to Heaven to live with Him forever.

So as we celebrate Christmas with all its trimmings, don’t let the busyness of the season or any of its shining distractions take your eyes off the prize.  Keep patiently and expectantly waiting for our savior to come.  And remember that what we do while we are waiting is also important.  Part of expectant waiting is to keep moving forward.  Keep being a light, keep spreading the Gospel, keep loving your neighbor.

Remember this:

Ephesians 5:15-16English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁵ Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

And, if you are in a season of personal waiting, let God strengthen you in your faith as you wait.  As James 1:2 says:

² Count it all joy, my brothers,^[b] when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

  And remember, that nothing is impossible with God.