What Are You Waiting For?

 In Pastor Jeff's Blog

But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently. – Romans 8:25

While my wall calendar says that we just entered the month of December, the Church calendar says that we just entered the season of Advent. The word “advent” means coming or arrival. It’s a four-week season of waiting for the advent or coming of Jesus. For Christians, that has a double meaning.

On the one hand, we’re preparing to celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world at his birth – an event that has already taken place.

On the other hand, we’re also preparing for that day when Jesus comes yet again to bring to completion his work of restoring all that sin has broken in this world and in our lives – an event that has yet to happen in fullness.

We do a lot of waiting in this Advent season. We wait in long lines at the store. We wait for online orders to be delivered. We wait for flights bearing loved ones to arrive. But at the heart of it, Advent is a season of waiting for Jesus.

When we sing beloved hymns like “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel” we’re not singing about Jesus’ birth. We’re singing about that day when Jesus returns, when sin and death and crying and pain are no more, when all things will be made new. (Revelation 21:1-5)

That kind of waiting is pregnant with hope. (Romans 8:18-25) That kind of waiting changes the way that we live. You know the joy you feel when you know that before long someone you love will be visiting you for the holidays? It’s the kind of joy and expectation that can sustain you even on a really difficult day.

That’s the quiet and expectant joy that flows through these days of Advent as we wait for the One who promises to redeem, renew and restore all things.

What are you waiting for?

Jeff Marian serves as lead pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, MN.

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