Waiting

I hope you like this picture of our nativity scene. It was brought for us from Israel when Bill’s brother and (late) Mum were there in 1980. It’s been a feature every Christmas since then.

It is special to me because it stands as a silent reminder that whatever we have experienced in the past year, and whatever brokenness that we see in our own nation and elsewhere, the words of a favourite Carol remind us that ‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight’.

Stop and think about that.

If it’s not true, we have no reason to hope. If it is true, we have no reason to fear.

I would guess there is a longing in all of us for things to be better, for things to be as they used to be, for things to be right. We keep waiting, but things only seem to get worse.

Having said that, this month I have been working through a series of Advent reflections called ‘Waiting for Jesus’. It has been an enormous help in gaining perspective on the subject of waiting. For example,

*It was 400 years from the time Malachi wrote about one who would come to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies, until Jesus came.

*When Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter Sunday, the disciples asked if he was now going to sort things out (‘restore the kingdom to Israel’ from the Romans). But no, there was more waiting to be done.

* The apostle Paul told the church in Ephesus that God’s purpose from the very beginning of time has been to unite all things in Christ. That’s a lot of waiting.

Knowing that every promise about the first coming of Jesus – his birth, his life, his death and his resurrection – has been fulfilled in God’s perfect time should give us unshakable confidence that every promise about his return and the end of this age will also be fulfilled. In his way, in his time.

Meanwhile, what of us? We wait with hopeful expectation as we lift our eyes above the circumstances and fix them on the one who holds all things in his hands. And we continue to do what we can to spread a little of His light into the dark corners where we are.

A very Merry Christ-mas to you!