the waiting

Tonight when I came home from the Kim Hill concert, I lugged my guitar and shoes and bags and stuff into the house to find A still up making Christmas decorations. She had “the fellowship of the ring” playing on the tube when I arrived. We had some weird spontaneous discussions about the movie. One thing she said was that she was sad that she couldn’t see it the same way she had the first time – thinking it could be a dark rider rather than Sam outside the window while Gandalf and Frodo are talking. What if you could go back and see it again for the first time, with all the surprises and tension and suspense?
I’ve been having these same thoughts for a few weeks and have mentioned or alluded to them in a few blogs concerning advent. This year, I’m so ready for it all to move slowly. To move with the speed of a child’s December anticipating Santa Claus day, but with my longing set on contemplation of the coming of my Savior; to grip a shred of understanding of the waiting. In real time, even through and beyond Jesus’ time in the flesh. Thoughts of Mary and Joseph and Simeon and even John the Baptizer who being told, still wondered, questioned. Dealing with the prophecies, seeing their fulfillment but not recognizing the form. In real God’s time, having truth revealed. Being given the choice to believe one piece at a time.
Its too easy for us. Retrospect. We have the story. We know the ending. It all just becomes routine so easily. Can we still bask in the wonder, the mystery of God becoming flesh and dwelling among us? I’m wondering if the story has just become so old and ordinary that we are no longer awed by it like the shepherds were that night. That we are no longer satisfied with the trust that Simeon had when his eyes beheld his salvation in the form of a tiny infant. Can we still ponder these things that Mary held in heart? Simeon knew he was seeing his salvation. Mary was told that Jesus would save His people from their sins. But did either know how this would be accomplished? I’m afraid that the Christmas story is no longer enough. I’ve noticed that we cannot speak about Jesus birth without talking about the cross in the same sentence. I’m wondering why Luke doesn’t just jump from chapter 2 to chapter 23. In fact, there are more than 30 years in those 20 chapters between. Surely they are important or Jesus would have come as a man and gone straight to the cross, or been slain as a baby. Here is a period of waiting and revelation that extends the period of silence, but in which Immanuel is already here and speaking. Simeon saw his salvation and died some 33 years before the cross, because in God’s time Jesus was the provision for Abraham as well as for me. I am fully aware of the necessity of the cross and for our remembrance of it. But somehow, and I can’t quite put my finger on this feeling of need, I want to experience the Joy of Christ’s advent and the Hope of my salvation without the knowledge of how it was accomplished. When Easter comes, I want to experience the pain of the surprise of how it was all played out, and the wonder at the impossibility of the reality of the resurrection. Let me hear God tell me a story start to finish without turning to the back of the book first.
There was a promise for which we had to wait. And all flesh SHALL see it together. The glory of the Lord SHALL be revealed.
God, teach me to wait on You. Teach me to trust You to speak to me as You see I am ready. Teach me to be ready, waiting, anticipating, longing for my salvation, Your glory.