What Are You Waiting For?

It's the Advent question. What are you waiting for? Waiting. It's our Advent mantra. It's what Advent it all about. Waiting.

But wait! What are we waiting for? After all, Jesus already came, didn't he? So we're not waiting for Jesus...are we? Jesus already came. He was already born. So we can't still be waiting, can we?

Maybe Advent is just, like, a pretending to wait. Pretending...Imagining what it must have felt like for Mary and Joseph and the shepherds to have the Christ Child come into their lives. Is that what Advent is? Pretending to wait? Acting "as if" this was the first time that Jesus is coming into the world?

Eh...I dunno. That seems to take some of the meaning out of Christmas...if we're just re-enacting ancient waiting.

It seems to me that, even though Jesus already came at the first Christmas long ago, that we are STILL waiting...for something. For Jesus to come again, or for there to be real, true peace on earth, or something. We are STILL truly waiting.

Advent...Christmas...is not about pretending to wait, or pretending to experience God's presence in our lives. No. Christ is doing a real thing even today! Especially today! Jesus is getting ready to come again! And we are getting ready to receive him again!

So what are you waiting for this Advent? I hope it's more than a prending to wait. I hope it's more than simply an imagining of what waiting for Jesus might be like. I hope, this Advent, that we all experience the true yearning that all of us have in our hearts for the presence of Emmanuel, God with us.