Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book Awards'The Meaning Is in the Waiting'
Antipathy to waiting is exacerbated, if not encouraged, by the world in which we live. Our credit-driven society urges us to buy now; so many advertisements have as their underlying message "Why wait?" Improvements in communication erode the notion of waiting further. It is increasingly a strange notion; we have become accustomed to immediacy and swift action.
Given this, it seems almost ludicrous that the church should have with Advent four weeks dedicated to waiting. Is this not the church, yet again, looking backward to bygone days, to ideas irrelevant to our society, out of touch and out of date? Would it not be a better idea to abandon Advent altogether?
It was only when I was pregnant with my first child that I realized I had completely misunderstood what waiting was about. I have a very low boredom threshold and, consequently, am bad at waiting. Yet no one who is expecting a child wants the waiting to end and the baby to come early—that can only spell heartache. I began to discover that waiting is not just about passing time but that it has a deep and lasting value in and of itself.
Waiting can be a nurturing time. Pregnant waiting is a profoundly creative act, involving a slow growth to new life. This kind of waiting may appear passive externally but internally it consists of never-ending action and is a helpful analogy for the kind of waiting that Advent requires.
For many of us, Advent is such a busy time with all our preparations for Christmas that the thought of stopping and sitting passively is simply impossible. Advent, however, does not demand passivity, but the utmost activity: active internal waiting that knits together new life.
All told, Advent calls us into a state of waiting that recognizes and embraces glimmers of God's presence in the world, that recalls and celebrates God's historic yet ever present actions, that speaks the truth about the almost-but-not-quite nature of our Christian living, that yearns for but cannot quite achieve divine perfection. Most of all, Advent summons us to the present moment, to a still yet active, tranquil yet steadfast commitment.
It is this to which Advent beckons us, and without it our Christian journey is impoverished.
Adapted by permission of Paraclete Press. © 2009. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
The Meaning is in the Waiting is available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.
Paula Gooder also wrote This Risen Existence: The Spirit of Easter.
Christianity Today has more articles on Advent and Christmas.
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It's the Thoughts That Count
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T.
Hi Christian student. If you pray for each other as individuals, then where do you fit in the body? Are you the hands or the feet, or the eyes of the body? You should be integrated somehow because you will have been chosen for this before you were born. "Before I was born the LORD called me"Isaiah 49:1 and Romans 12:5 so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. The body is not there to pray for you as an individual which you seem to want; wanting to remain individualistic, but "they" are there to pray for you as a part of the "us". Already you have divorced yourself from me and the others. Your words seem to suggest you want the body to care for you as an individual and that you pray for them as individuals, without any sense of deep commitment to one single body to which you all belong. It is sad, very sad. Unless you are not counting your words properly. But your words speak volumes about the "me generation".
Christian Student
T, we're getting nowhere here. Your views seem to conform to those of Catholicism, and in a way, Calvinism. Mine, however, are not. I know exactly where my salvation comes from, and I know it has nothing to do with anything good or bad that I've done. However, accepting Christ as one's savior is something that one has to do his/herself. God can do anything He wants, but He does leave it to us to accept Him. Also, I don't think that I am better than you, and I apoligize if I gave you that impression. I know that I belong to the Body of Christ, and my brothers and sisters in Christ are very important to me. They encourage me, disciple me, pray for me, and I try to do the same for them. I'm not trying to disown them, but at the same time, I cannot credit them for my salvation. As far as the elect go, God created all of us, He wants all of us, though He doesn't need us, and He offers His Grace and Forgiveness to all. You can argue with that all you want; I, however, am done. God Bless, T.
T
there are errors in teaching in the church and they seem to be focused around the protestant church that preaches an individualistic gospel. Jesus taught that for us to be fruitful we have to remain in him and he will remain in us and we have to love one another. How else will we show the world that we belong to Christ? These are not individualistic teachings. Jesus chose for himself an elect, a portion for himself. He did not choose "you". As much as you want to give credit to Jesus for your salvation he did not choose you esp because you are good or right, but because you are part of the group of elect. So if I appear insulting it is because you are showing signs of disowning the group to which you belong in favor of your own personal election. You are not any better than me and in fact if you were as bad as me you would realize that your selection for salvation has nothing to do with your individual merits at all. You were chose to belong, because you always did belong to a group.