We were part way through a protracted season of house-hunting when a wise friend spoke these words. I wasn’t sure whether to feel encouraged or overwhelmed – it was an affirmation that we would find what we were looking for – but at the same time, it was a challenge to dig deeper for the patience and hope needed to do so!
Waiting is hard! It cuts across the current of a culture formed by the 16th Century adage that, “Good things come to those who wait – but only the things left by those who hustle”! We live in an age of quick fixes, instant gratification, and the anxiety of FOMO – which turns out has been around much longer than we thought! Waiting is hard because uncertainty and loss of control is hard.
We wait for test results, for the bus, for latecomers to meetings, meals, or flights. We wait in birthing units and emergency rooms; we wait around hospice bedsides. Some of us scroll, read, exercise, or work to fill the time - anything to distract ourselves from the quiet desperation that sets in when what we wait for is delayed. Others stress, get frustrated, agitated, impatient, even angry. Still others retreat, push pause, and resign themselves to a kind of half-life of suspended animation.
Waiting is part and parcel of being human, so it’s not surprising to see it woven through the Biblical narrative: Abraham and Sarah waiting for a son. The enslaved people of Israel looking for freedom. Jacob wrestling with God on the eve of a life-impacting reunion. Exiles longing for that moment when their faces would turn toward home.
Not all waiting ended well – the people grew tired of waiting for Moses to return from his summit with YHWH and Aaron grew impatient along with them – drawn into their anxiety, Aaron stopped being a leader and became an accomplice in their idolatry. Similarly, after centuries of longing, it was the leaders who missed the expected Messiah! Pharisees distracted by their concern to get things right, Sadducees emmeshed in the power plays of governance, Essenes cloistered from life to wait it out, and Zealots too busy skirmishing the oppressors to notice.
The moment on which all history, all creation, and all humanity pivots belongs to a teenaged virgin treasuring the Mystery in the face of social censure and uncertainty, and a Lifetime later, watching for the Word’s final breath, and lingering at an empty tomb. Mary knew how to wait! The parables of the talents and the ten virgins in Matthew 25 pick up the waiting theme. How we wait is about stewardship – kaitiakitanga, about attentiveness and earnest desire – matenui. It’s about staying awake while attending to the task before us. It seems how we wait is as critical as that we wait!
We are a people who wait for the Lord’s return, and each year Advent invites us to pay attention to the quality of our waiting.
New Testament scholar, Paula Gooder captures this in the title of her Advent book: The meaning is in the waiting. How we wait, not only in Advent, but in all those other ‘waits’ that make up our lives, is critical. Waiting isn’t dead time, wasted time, or even marking time. The meaning truly is in the waiting because here we come to see what we’re really made of, to re-align with what really matters to God and to us – if only we find the courage to wrestle, to linger, to be attentive.
As I’ve reflected on the quality of Mary’s waiting, and paid attention to the invitations of my own wait, I’ve come to appreciate why “it takes courage to wait”.
- It takes courage to keep our hearts and our identity tethered to Jesus – to place our hope in Him – his faithfulness and goodness - rather than a specific outcome.
- It takes courage to be attentive, watchful, and ready – without losing patience and taking shortcuts, or losing hope and giving up.
- It takes courage to linger at the last place we heard and saw Jesus clearly – and trust that a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb – the unexpected and unsurmountable - are what it takes to see and hear Him in new ways.
As the closure of another year overlaps again with one of the busiest seasons in the Church, what are you waiting for? What is the quality of your waiting? Where are you waiting on God’s guidance - or longing for his intervention? What is God’s invitation to you this Advent season? What would it take to be more attentive in the waiting?
As Christian leaders Advent is the final stretch of a long year in ministry, a season often planned and executed with military precision, knowing Boxing Day and holidays beckon on the horizon. We at the Centre for Church Leadership honour your faithfulness through another year of navigating the very real challenges of ministry. We celebrate the many signs that God is at work in and through his people in Aotearoa. We also recognize that as a Church we long for and wait for God’s Kingdom of justice and peace to finally and fully break into our broken world. Until that day, we wait with you, attentive to what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and stewarding our resources through coaching, resourcing, and training leaders for the Church and God’s mission in the world. See https://www.centreforchurchleadership.nz/ and https://www.laidlaw.ac.nz/.
It takes courage to wait! As you look back on the year that’s been and seek God for the year ahead, may the strong presence of Emmanuel – God with us by his Spirit and through his people – birth in you all the courage and hope you need to wait on God’s timing and direction for your life and ministry in the coming year.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret!
Psalm 37:7
