We live in a pretty immediate world.
Let’s take food, for instance.
First – the invention of “fast food.” Then microwaves. Now there is the Insta Pot – which frankly, is like magic.
Even our entertainment is rather immediate. What used to be well-timed programing with printed publications like TV Guide that helped us plan what we watched and when, now we simply click a button and have myriads of entertainment at our fingertips.
When we want things we want them immediately.
Yet, here we are . . . entering the season of Advent. The time leading up to the celebration of the birth of the Christ child. Celebrating Advent means we must learn to wait. And this is an art which our impatient age has forgotten.
Yet, there is a blessedness in waiting.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of the promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the answers come. They lose the moment when the answers are revealed in dazzling clarity.”
Those of us who learn to wait are ok to live in the in-between space and time recognizing that there is a vision of greatness in the world of the future that will one day be fulfilled. Yet – it isn’t right now. We recognize we are poor in spirit and imperfect. We look forward to something greater that is yet to come. We learn to wait.
May we each ponder what it means to wait. Let us prepare our hearts for what is yet to come as we experience the joy that Christmas Eve brings.