ADVENT WAITING AND WATCHING

It turns out that the One who made us is also the One who cannot stand for us to be apart. And that One begins to whisper to the ones who will listen -- "I will come again, I will walk among you. Look for me in a child who is to come, born of a maiden." The ones who hear the whisper and believe it begin to whisper themselves, trying to describe as best they can what they hear and what is to come. They use words like "Messiah," "Immanuel," the "Rod of Jesse," and "Son of David," trying to speak of what they know can hardly be said. The collective repeating of the whisper grows in volume until it has become as the sound of a voice crying in the wilderness.

Those who have begun to wait and to watch can indeed do only that: wait and watch. They look for the signs of God among us and wait and hope and wonder if they have somehow misunderstood.

And now we wait along with them again. 

-- Robert Benson in “The Night of the Child” (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room Books, 2001. Used with permission.) 

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ADVENT HOPE – ALERT EXPECTATION

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”  (Hebrews 10:23)

Hoping does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.

And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it His way and in His time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling Him both how and when to do it. That is not hoping in God but bullying God. "I pray to GOD… waiting for what He'll say and do. My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.”

-- Eugene H. Peterson in “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society”

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