Help us to wait, even when we feel we can’t wait any longer, when the gate of heaven stays shut tight to our appeal. Help us to wait. To wait as Israel waited, though her fate was silence for four hundred years, to steel ourselves to patience till an unknown date. Advent reminds us that the wait is real but that it’s laced with hope. However late you are in acting, yet you will not fail. Help us to wait.
This is a lightly edited version of a poem I wrote quite a few years ago and which I think was inspired by a sermon at the time. So much of life seems to be about waiting, doesn’t it? Waiting for a reply to that email. Waiting for the results of an important test. Waiting for time to be the healer that it’s meant to be. Waiting for the end of a meeting or the end of a war. Waiting to see someone you love again. Waiting for God to answer your prayers.
Advent reminds us that our waiting is hope-filled. God has acted and he will act again. Good things have happened and even better things are to come.
Amen and amen.