Where the Waiting meets the Now - The Miracle of Advent

Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  The problem of a promise, the hardest part of hope, the deep ache of a dream is in the waiting.

And yet.  There is the beauty of the bare and barren, the sparse and spacious, the echoing and empty.  There is room here.  There is room here for You to come, for me to meet You.  There is a place here for grace to flood.  

Abraham and Sarah, old and gray, laughing for joy because their son was a miracle because they had waited... and waited.

Joseph and Mary, representatives of a nation, kneeling on the earth from which we were formed, holding the Child who broke the silence.  All of time and space bursting forth with starlight and angel song, because we'd been waiting for so long.  

This man, blind from birth, he knows who the Messiah is because when the messy mud of spit and earth comes from the hand of God and touches him in the face, he can finally see.  He knows because he lived waiting blind for so long, and NOW HE CAN SEE.  

And this twenty-something single sitting in a pew holding dreams of a future and a home just like every young woman her age?  She stands and she walks to the Compassion table and suddenly she's holding someone else's dream in her hand.  One little girl dressed in red and one in yellow. She draws the cards to her heart and the tears come, like a melting heart can do nothing else but stream down her face.  Because in her waiting, she can still find peace.  Because here is the least of these, and here is Jesus. 

And here is the answer for all the waiting.  When you believe that God has arrived, that He sees and that He provides nothing less than Himself for your every need, you can breathe in peace and exhale praise like you've never known before.  You can laugh joy.  You can sing worship.  You can see beauty.  And ultimately, you can provide too.

Because Advent is where the waiting meets the now.  Where the greatest gift of His Presence meets the greatest need of our present, and God With Us sees us and chooses to make our hearts like some earthy, messy manger, His home.  And even in the waiting and the broken dreams and our weakness He uses us, to burst forth into the world.  He plants the seed of love and in piercing pain it spreads roots deep and stretches our hearts wide to make room for the least of these, to make room for Him.

So in my waiting I remember that God always provides by giving Himself.  And that, in the least of these, I meet Jesus face to face.  So I will sit in His presence until I am overwhelmed by His goodness and then, I will give my resounding YES to the opportunity to overflow with His goodness to others.  Because my waiting for dreams to come true meets the now of His arrival and their need.  So I will wait and I will give because He always sees and He always provides.  And there is Peace here.