Waiting

“How much LONGER!” the little voice from the backseat whines. “We’ve been driving FOREVER! Aren’t we THERE yet?”

If you have ever travelled to Toronto with a small child, you know this moan. And it is only an hour into the trip. What to do?

Well, you can tell the little one to just be quiet and sit there. “We just have to wait.” But that is not terribly helpful, is it? Not any more helpful than it is for us when we stand tapping our foot and sighing deeply when the person in front of us at the checkout can’t make their debit card work. Not any more helpful than when we toss the three year old magazine back onto the side table in the doctor’s office and scowl at the admin assistant who is busy at the computer. There is much more to be learned in the little waitings – and the long wilderness times of our lives than just to endure them.

It does help to begin to help our little one look forward to what is coming, to expect the good things. “What do you think Grandma is doing right now to get ready for us? What will be the best thing when we get there?” Looking to what is coming can make the difference between passive, frustrating waiting and joyful anticipation. So it is with our Isaiah reading this Sunday (Isaiah ) The people in bondage in Babylon were encouraged to look ahead to what God was going to do. Those same words were whispered in hope and sung with courage by those living when Mary and Joseph were travelling to Bethlehem and they speak to us today in a world many find increasingly fearful.

I suspect that this reading may have an even more profound meaning for our brothers and sisters in Nigeria, as they pray and watch and wait, hoping for the release of scores of school children and their teachers who have been kidnapped. I urge you to pray for those who are living in that terror, and the family and friends who are devastated by this atrocity. How deep must be the longing for the day when the “lion will lay down with the lamb”. We need to be much in prayer about this.

For our little child, even better than telling them just to be still and wait -to endure the hardship of waiting, is certainly to  encourage them to expect all that lies ahead, would be to help them engage in some way. One might get them to draw a picture to give as a gift, or for an older child, to write a “gratitude” list, focussing on the person you will see. We know that all of this helps the child grow in their ability to delay gratification, to learn to wait well. And this is what Paul talks about in our Romans reading (Romans 15:4-13). How do we not just endure the wait for Jesus’ return and the establishment of his kingdom of peace, not only live in expectation but engage in the process of being the kingdom of God, here and now. That is the work of Advent and on Sunday we will think about Enduring, Expecting and Engaging – Making the Wait Work

Happy Advent!

Rev. Marie