Advent Reflections
The advent calender is nearly empty, the waiting is nearly over. Our girls are a little over excited already and it is only 8am. They can’t understand why we won’t let them open just one of the presents under the tree. But that would miss the point surely. Wait and hope.
This season of Advent has been intended to make us watchful, to teach us to wait and to hope.
It is hard for us, for we have got used to having what we want and having it now. When we don’t get it we feel angry and frustrated.
But if we can learn to wait and hope it will shape our lives.
Instead of settling for what we have, and trying to make ourselves comfortable we are willing to put up with discomfort, with not belonging, even with suffering because this is not it.
And we long for the day when justice and mercy will be seen in all the earth, when God will wipe away every tear. We pray “Your Kingdom Come”.
And we celebrate the glimpses of it, the stories of it and the echoes of it. We love selflessness, generosity, grace, mercy because these things are kingdom things.
These things, like the windows on our advent calendar are reminders as we wait and hope and pray the conclusion to morning prayer during advent:
Our Lord says, I am coming soon.
Come Lord Jesus.
May the Lord, when he comes, find us watching and waiting.
Amen.
