Advent means “arrival” or “coming,”--Christ coming into the world, coming into our lives. Advent then is a season of waiting - waiting for the coming of our Lord, waiting for the arrival of God’s promise to be Emmanuel, to be God with us.
Like it or not, most of us spend a lot of time waiting. We wait for a parking space. We wait in lines at stores. We wait for someone to return our call. We wait for friends and family to notice a change in our lives.
Sometimes waiting is all we can do, and our hearts become heavy from all the waiting. We wait for answers to our deepest questions; we wait for God to do something about a concern that we have.
And yet, waiting is an essential part of faith. In the Gospel of Luke we read that Zechariah and Elizabeth were engaged in a particular kind of waiting. They had been waiting for the blessing of being able to conceive a child together. They were still waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise to change the world.
What are you waiting for? What are you anticipating? What are you hoping for?
These questions come to us most poignantly during the season of Advent.
Sometimes we can be waiting so long or waiting with such intensity that we actually fail to see the arrival of what we have been waiting for. Our preoccupations, our fears and our perspective of life can often lead to our words eclipsing the very revelation of God’s Word. So it was for Zechariah. In response, God thrust Zechariah into a prolonged period of silence—an act of judgment to be sure but also a gift of grace.
As we continue to share the journey of Advent, may we enter into the waiting and the silence of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Together with them we will wait and see the Word of God come to fulfillment at the proper time.
Let us be alert to the coming of Christ long ago, here and now and one final time when this world as we know it, comes to an end. May we find hope in our waiting and wisdom in the silence. May we live in anticipation for the light that is about to break forth!
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