First Friday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
No one waits alone
by Lea Wilkening
I’m not a natural waiter.
I don’t mean the waiter that tends restaurant tables. I’ve spent plenty of time working those jobs to be proficient. I’m not great as someone waiting for their longings to be answered. Perhaps I’m a product of my instant-gratification generation. Whether it’s watching water boil to make it go faster or eating the little chocolates in the advent calendar long before Christmas, I’m uncomfortable waiting.
As a teen, I took a city bus to school, and the worst part of my day was standing at the bus stop alone in the morning. I waited in silence, except for the occasional nod from a passerby who managed to catch my attention as I stared down at my shoes. The few minutes of waiting alone seemed like a time warp, swallowing up most of my day.
In the afternoon, waiting for the bus was an altogether different experience.
Nearly a hundred students filed out of school to make their way en masse to the nearest stop. My tedious morning commute was replaced with a celebratory end-of-day parade of sorts. I can only imagine it was not as celebratory for the surrounding neighbourhood as teen angst echoed through the alleyways in shouts and rolling laughter.
Along the route to the bus stop, subgroups would form and disperse like oil in water, coming together to make plans for the weekend. Someone would separate to work up the courage to ask a date to the dance, only to merge again to debate whether the math teacher smelled more like coffee or cigarettes. Once the caravan got to the corner stop, the mele continued.
No one was silent and no one stared at their feet.
The waits were often longer to accommodate so many riders at once, but the time shared with friends warped into what felt like mere moments. Our closing-day rhythm was nothing short of a mysterious liturgy of youthful possibility.
Everything was right in our world, and as the school day closed, we looked forward to the wait together.
The text for today, Isaiah 30:19-26, speaks of Israel’s waiting. An entire nation is waiting for God to keep his promises. They wait for liberation, provision, and wholeness for the land. It turns out, they don’t make great waiters either. The uncertainty feels daunting. They can’t see a way out of their troubles, so the nation’s leaders look to form alliances with Egypt. It seems impossible that the parched earth would begin to produce and that their worn-out hearts would be replenished. So, they choose not to live the way that would bring restoration, the way of God.
Instead of grounding themselves in the slow, steady covering of God, they set their sights elsewhere. Giving themselves up to the oppressive state that enslaved them and subjecting themselves to a plethora of gods who were never fully pleased by their striving religiosity was better than the alternative.
At least then they wouldn’t have to wait for an unseen God to keep his astonishing promises. At least then, they were no longer waiting.
Every Advent, we remember the human condition of waiting. There are some seasons when the wait feels like we are drenched in the suffering of this world, like being exposed to a cold rain at a stop without shelter. So many feel the burden of waiting in this season. Some of us wait for a cure, others wait for relief. Some wait for change. Others wait for the return to better days.
All of creation waits.
In Romans 8:18-21, Paul reminds us that creation waits in eager expectation. The whole creation groans. The earth waits for healing. The birds and the animals wait for compassion. Nations wait for peace. At our very core, we wait for the day when God’s promises will be fully realized, when all things will be made new (Rev. 21:5).
What are you waiting for? When I was 3 years old, my grandfather took his life. He spent years in and out of prison. His blanket from the Michigan City Penitentiary, still with his prisoner numbers written in permanent marker, was the security blanket I carried throughout my childhood. His life was a product of generational trauma. I think I’ve been waiting my whole life for the day when there is no more pain and the suffering has ceased. When there’s no need for thieving or prisons because all will be well.
We wait for the risen Christ to come and sit at the table with us again. We wait for the time we will dwell together with our Creator face-to-face in the garden, the place where our soul belongs, our bodies and the earth as they are created to be.
One of the mysteries of this season is that we wait with all those with whom we share this planet. We also wait with all those who have come before us and those that will follow. Like a mysteriously too-quick end-of-day parade, time warps when we recognize our companionship. We share this planet with other waiters who are longing for something more.
We are caravanning with the Israelites in celebration of the birth of God’s promised Messiah, the Christ child. Their story reminds us on our way that the Creator of all times will be gracious to us in our time of need and, as soon as he hears, he will answer (v19).
Even if we are waiting alone on a frosty morning, staring down at our shoes without a friend to pass the time, God’s promises throughout Isaiah assure us that we are never alone. We have the voice of his Spirit behind us, saying, “This is the way; walk in it” (v. 21).
In his study of the Bible’s wisdom literature, William P. Brown writes, “Joy is never guaranteed, but it remains ever a possibility. Enjoyment thus is a wonder, a paradox in which the human encounters the Divine in mysterious interaction, a testimony both to the ‘hand of God’ and to the human will. Joy is both a gift and task.”[1]
May your joy this Advent season be this: no one waits alone. Let’s pass the time together, in expectant hope.
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