Waiting for Good Things to Come

December 21st, 2020

Read Luke 2:25-38, NIV

Do you remember as a kid waiting for Christmas to come?  

Poring over the JC Penney Christmas catalog, opening another window on the Advent calendar, counting the minutes until the school bell would ring on that last day before break?

It was a time of waiting, of anticipation, and of excitement for that day to come. There was no anxiety that the day might not come or that it would be bad when it did.  But rather waiting with hope, knowing the good day would come: it was just a matter of when and how soon.

Interestingly, Jesus’ life was bookended by people who were similarly waiting with hope for a good day to come.

The first are Simeon and Anna, who are featured in this passage.  Both are aged, devout people who had followed God as best they could in what had been a rather dark time for God’s people. And both were waiting, hoping for the day when God’s Messiah would come.

Simeon, described as someone “waiting for the consolation of Israel,” took the infant Jesus in his arms and blessed him, saying he would be “a light of revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

Anna had been frequenting the Temple for worship, waiting for the coming Messiah, likely for well over 50 years. On this day, she gave thanks to God for the coming of the Messiah, and “spoke of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

At the other end of Jesus’ life, as well, we come across another person who was anticipating the coming of God’s kingdom. In Mark’s gospel (15:43), shortly after Jesus had died, we see a man named Joseph of Arimathea who plucks up the courage to go to the ruling authorities and request Jesus’ body so as to give him a respectful burial.

He is described as a man “who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God.”  And so despite the fact of the hoped-for Messiah’s death, he still acted with courage based in the firm knowledge that somehow God would work things out even if it wasn’t in the expected way.

And work things out, God did!

For us, on the other side of the resurrection, we have more of the story, but we too must also wait in hope.

Jesus rose from the dead and conquered sin and death, but the years roll on over the nearly two millennia since that bright Sunday morning. We pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and we see some good things, but also many things wrong in the world.

Theologians have said we live in the “already and not yet,” and there’s something to that.

We’ve begun the story; maybe we’ve even passed the highest point of the drama, but we’re not yet to the final chapter where God once and for all makes all things right.

Jesus came, God-enfleshed, as a baby on that first Christmas way back when.  That was the first Advent (or “coming”). He dwelt among us.  He lived, died, and rose again.  

Now we too must wait with hope (cf Roman’s 8:23). Just as Simeon, Anna, and Joseph of Arimathea waited for the first Advent, so too we await with eagerness the second.

We don’t know when it will be...it may be today or not until two more millennia hence...but the day will surely come when God makes all things right once and for all.

May we, this Christmas season, look forward with hope to that day!

What areas of your life could you use an infusion of hope this Christmas season?

Prayer: God, help me today to remember all will be made right one day and to look forward with hope to that day.

Jeremy Gott