Waiting and Eagerness for Advent and Every Day

We’ve been in the season of Advent - the four weeks leading up to Christmas morning. And during this season, the primary theme has been waiting and expectation. 

Just as a child eagerly awaits the arrival of Christmas day, the day that involves opening all those gifts piled under the tree, Advent is about a waiting. It’s about an expectation. It’s about eagerness. 

But what we’re eager for is more than packages and objects and things that will one day break and be disposed of. We’re eagerly waiting for the celebration of Jesus. And we’re eagerly waiting for the arrival of Jesus once again.

For 400 years, since the time of the prophets who had come to tell Israel about a coming Messiah, God’s people had been waiting for that arrival.

Isaiah announced that a child would be born and a son given. He declared that the government would be upon his shoulders and that his name would be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This was a promise made to the people of Israel - that rescue was coming; that a Savior would be born; that one day they would be redeemed.

And they waited. They wondered. They expected. They had faith. They looked forward to the day when this promise would become a reality. 

And then one day He came. “God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law.” That promised son from Isaiah’s prophecy made His arrival on the earth. The Word had become flesh and come to dwell among His people, and He brought salvation with Him.

So, Advent is a remembrance of that waiting. It’s a time to reflect on what it was like to have waited all those years for a Messiah, and to finally see His coming. 

The word Advent comes from a Latin word that means “arrival.” During this season, the focus has been on that first arrival of Jesus and the hope and joy and love and peace that His birth brought to the world. That arrival changed everything, and now salvation is possible for all people through that promised Prince of Peace.

But Advent is also about another arrival. It’s not only a time of reflection, but also a time of anticipation. Again, just like that child who eagerly awaits Christmas morning so he can tear into those presents, we who belong to Jesus are eagerly awaiting something more spectacular and everlasting. 

Jesus came once, two thousand years ago, to bring salvation to the world. And Jesus will one day come again, at a time unknown to us, to bring us to the Father for all of eternity. This is what we’re waiting for now, the thing that we’re eagerly anticipating.

But is it an eager anticipation? For some, the future coming of Christ is a thing that’s known but not fully grasped. It’s maybe a distant fact, something that has been said will happen one day, but nothing that has an immediate effect on their lives.

But what if it did? What if we lived with a constant sense of His coming? What if every day we felt that longing for heaven, that desire to be with the Lord, that affection for Him and hunger for His return that compelled us to live more full lives on this earth?

What if we wasted nothing - not a moment, not an opportunity, not a gift or a talent - because we believed whole-heartedly that His arrival is coming and we aren’t promised tomorrow? What if we kept that second arrival at the forefront of our hearts and minds and allowed it to compel a greater affection for Jesus within us? 

This is Advent - arrival, expectation, waiting. In a few short days we’ll celebrate the arrival of a Savior. And the hope is that our expectation and eagerness will continue for all the days after.