Waiting. The season of Advent is about waiting. Waiting for God. Waiting for things to be different. Waiting for God to make things different. Waiting.
Waiting is what we do when we can't do anything else. It is what we do when we walk through the hard and harsh times life sometimes (often?) brings. It is what we do when life is full of pain and empty of joy, full of struggle and void of peace. It is what we do when life as it is has become almost unbearable and seemingly meaningless. Waiting is what we do when we feel powerless to change what is.
I'm not good at waiting. I don't particularly like waiting. I am not good at feeling powerless, unable to make things happen, unable to make life what I want it to be. I assume I am not the only one.
Like it or not, waiting is a part of living. Waiting is a part of life because stuff happens. While our free will (the power to choose) gives us power to determine much of our lives, life often leads us down paths we did not choose ... and would never choose! We face things we would rather not have to face.
Waiting is what we do when life is not what we want it to be ... and we are powerless to do anything about it.
This reality - waiting is a part of life - raises two questions: how do we wait? what do we do as we wait? The way we answer the first question determines the answer to the second. What we do as we wait is determined by how we wait.
Our faith shapes how we wait. Our faith in God's steadfast love - a love that never wavers - shapes how we wait. Our faith in God's faithfulness - knowing that God never gives up on us or abandons us - shapes how we wait. Our faith in God's mercies - mercies that are new every morning, that are more than adequate for our needs for the day - shapes how we wait.
An unidentified Hebrew poet gave voice to such faith as he lived in exile in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem and the nation of Judah. All that gave structure and meaning and a sense of security had been taken from him as his world had been violently destroyed by an invading army. In its place, he was forced to live in the strangeness of a foreign land. In spite of the bitterness he felt in his homelessness, he wrote: "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in him.'" (Lamentations 3:22-24).
Like this unnamed poet, our faith teaches us to wait in hope. Faith in God's steadfast, unwavering love, in God's new-every-morning mercies, in God's never-gives-up-on-or-abandons-us faithfulness gives birth to hope. Hope: the quiet confidence, the settled assurance that the current reality is not the last word - that God is still at work - that God can and will transform the pain of the current reality into something good.
Waiting in hope shapes what we do as we wait.
As we wait in hope, we pray. We pray for God to work. We pray for an openness to the unexpected, unpredictable thing that God will do. We pray for the strength to wait until we can see what God is doing. We pray for the courage to be a part of what God is doing when we do recognize it. We pray for God's peace in the midst of the waiting.
As we wait in hope, we choose the spirit and attitude with which we live. We are never completely powerless. When we are powerless to change our situation, we still have the power to determine how we will respond to the situation. We have the power to choose the spirit and attitude out of which we will live in the mist of the situation. Resting in God's peace, we choose to live out of the joy of the Lord, open to all of the gifts God has for us in each moment.
As we wait in hope, we strive to be faithful. We continue to live the ways of God that Jesus taught. We respond in love. We live as God's agents of peace and goodwill. We seek to participate in what God is doing, living as God's partners, doing God's work in the world.
As we wait in hope, our waiting is transformed. Hope leads us beyond our sense of being powerless. As we wait in hope, our power is redirected - away from that which we cannot change to that which, by God's grace, we can.
Truly, the Lord "works for those who wait for him" (Isaiah 64:4c).
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