2nd December 2024
Advent – a season of waiting
Part of a series on Advent
But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Saviour; my God will hear me.
Micah 7:7 (NIVUK)
The word ‘advent’ means ‘arrival’, and in Christian communities around the world, it is a season of remembering and celebrating Jesus’s arrival on earth, and the anticipation of his second advent when he will return to earth and establish the fullness of his kingdom forever. But Jesus didn’t arrive and won’t come again without a period of waiting.
There were 400 years of silence between the final prophecies of the Old Testament, found in the Book of Malachi, and the birth of Jesus. During that time there was no recorded word from God and no prophet. It must have been a very difficult time for the people of God to wait for so long and they might be forgiven for wondering where God was, and if his long-promised Messiah was ever going to come?
Then just at the right time (Galatians 4:4) the wait was over, the silence broken, as the Bethlehem fields were lit up and the angels proclaimed, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’ (Luke 2:14). Jesus was born: the Son of God had taken on flesh and had become ‘…Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).’ (Matthew 1:23). As we wait during this season of Advent, we know that it ends with Jesus coming to be with us.
As we wait for Christmas to come, we also wait for Jesus to come again. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while in prison for his resistance efforts against Hitler’s regime, wrote these words in a letter to his parents: ‘Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.’ 1
It’s been 2000 years since Jesus’s ascension, and as we wait for Jesus’s second coming we may be forgiven for wondering where God is, and if the long-awaited arrival of his Son is ever going to happen. But we can rest assured that, as with his first coming, Jesus’s second coming will occur just at the right time.
The season of Advent is a time of waiting hopefully and expectantly, but it is not simply a season in the Christian calendar. Advent is a state of being. We are to live out our lives in hopeful anticipation. There may be suffering, fear, and uncertainty in this world but a new day is coming. A Saviour has been born to us (Luke 2:11) and he will return to be with us for all eternity (Revelation 21:3). May God speed that day.
Prayer
Come, Lord Jesus, come. And may we watch in hope for you our Saviour to return as King of kings and Lord of lords. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger; Reflections on Advent and Christmas, p2.
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Study by: Barry Robinson About the author: |
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Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA
Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm
Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church