Christmas is for Waiting

"Can I open it?" 

(2 minutes later) 

"Now, can I open it?" 

(30 seconds later) 

"I open my gift now?"

Conversations like this have become a regular institution in my household since my wife and I became foster parents to an amazing five year old several months ago. The new experience has taught me a lot. And maybe now, with interactions like the above those lessons are being tailored for Christmas.

Just as my kid doesn't like waiting to open his presents, I don't like the waiting inherent to the Christmas story as well. But Christmas, at the deepest level, is about expectant waiting.

There's the relational arc: Waiting to see friends and family after long separation.

There's the consumerist arc: Waiting for deals and Amazon boxes.

There's the fictional arc: Waiting for a jolly man to commit some reverse B&E to your home.

But, there's also a divine arc of waiting. 

The first half of the Christmas story is about waiting for an arrival. It starts millennia before a manger in Bethlehem when a promise was set forth in Genesis 3 that a Rescuer would one day undo the work of the serpent and heal the enmity between man and God and all creation. Clues about the identity and work of this Rescuer were given throughout the centuries and God's people waiting for this Person to come. For generation after generation after generation, people lived and died looking forward and believing that God would one day send Someone who would undo all that was evil and broken in the world. Finally, this culminated in the arrival of Jesus in an inconspicuous city. He was born to a young girl, fled as a refugee, and raised in a backwater area no one believed to be of any consequence. But this was it, the end of the waiting. The Rescuer had come and he indeed did work rescue.

The second half of the Christmas story, where we find ourselves today, is about waiting for a return. From the point of Jesus' ascension onward, His followers have been waiting for this Rescuer to arrive once again. He promised that though he was leaving that one day he would appear and set all things right. That he would wipe every tear away from our eyes and make an end to all war and death and oppression. He promised that we would see him face to face and be in his presence. His return is to bring with it fulfillment of every good thing, an answer to our every cry of pain, despair, and hurt. Christmas is about remembering the waiting of others and engaging in waiting of our own, waiting for this God to come and live with us.

I don't know about you, but 2017 was hard for me. The dignity of my community and worth of my neighbors was assaulted from the most powerful officials in our nation. On a weekly basis, I held a crying child in the middle of the night to assure him it would be alright (not knowing if I could ever truly protect him from those fears). I saw lives torn apart again and again and again by sin, systems, and choices. I saw friends reach incredible triumphs only to have their whole foundation crumble under their feet. And I had to digest all that into my own psyche and ask, "What is there to hope in?"

So, this Christmas, what are we waiting for? 

The great hymn "O Holy Night" gives us one glimpse. In the third verse the song proclaims, thinking of the coming of this great Rescuer, "And in his name all oppression shall cease." This Christmas, our waiting can be embedded into this lyric. Whatever it is that you are waiting for, the Coming King stands ready to answer. We put our hope and our waiting in him, even if we don't know when it is that he will answer.

We can sing, "And in his name all depression shall cease."

We can sing, "And in his name all chronic pain shall cease."

We can sing, "And in his name all defamation of the Image of God shall cease."

We can sing, "And in his name all sin and consequence shall cease."

At Christmas, we wait. At Christmas, I invite you to fill in the blank. We remind ourselves that millions of our brothers and sisters sat in expectancy for lifetimes and one day saw the fulfillment of the coming Rescuer, so we too can have the strength to put our hope in him.

For we know that he has come, we know that he lives still, and we know that he is with us in our waiting. His second arrival is promised and while we wait we can call upon his name.

Come Lord Jesus.