Advent and Waiting

Internally bound within the concept of Advent is the painful process of waiting. Those who waited for the first advent waited and hoped through exile, return, oppression, revolution, and extreme nationalism. In our 21st century global village, we wait for the second advent in a myriad of circumstances. But the common thing binding all those who have waited for an advent, whether it be the first or the second, is that we have all experienced the pain of waiting.

My wife and I were engaged for two years before we got married. Those two years were happy and joy filled times that both of us loved. But after two years, the wedding day could not come fast enough. It’s not that neither of us were not satisfied with the way our relationship was with one another, but we knew that something greater than engagement was on the verge of happening. Waiting is a paradox. It can be both painful and joyful.

But within Advent, we celebrate both the pain and the joy of waiting because they both point to God with us.

Waiting is joy filled because in the tension of waiting, we find hope in that which we are waiting for. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “whoever does not know the austere blessedness of waiting - that is, of hopefully doing without - will never experience the full blessing of fulfillment.” (1)

Focusing on Bonhoeffer’s words, if we do not experience the absence of that which we wait for, we can never fully appreciate it when it fully arrives. Those who awaited the first advent found hope through the despair of exile. This hope fully manifested itself in the stories of Simeon and Anna who experienced the fullness of joy in receiving the full blessing of that for which they had waited so long (Luke 2:22-38).

But for all of the hope we experience in waiting, we still experience the sharp pain of waiting. Anna who experienced a full manifestation of the blessings of waiting still had to endure the 70 years of being a widow in a society that was dominated by men (Luke 2:36-37). Bonhoeffer who wrote of the great blessings of waiting still endured the harsh realities of a Nazi prison while waiting for a reward that he never received before falling asleep. Those of us who look forward to the second advent still experience the groanings of creation that is infected with sin as it waits to be redeemed (Rom. 8:19-25).

Waiting is a paradox. It is joyful and painful. But in this season of Advent, we celebrate the tension of waiting in the tension of our celebration of he who has come and will come again.

(1) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 4.