We aren’t very good at waiting. We get impatient sitting at a red light. If a person doesn’t let off their break within a fraction of a second of the light turning green, many people are quick to their horn. We like our food fast and our products delivered. A whole delivery industry has developed around our impatience. Our society of productivity has created an angst in us when there is a gap in our schedules. I’m exaggerating the point a little just to say, we struggle with waiting.
Is there a way to see waiting as productive? When the thing that you are waiting on is of greatest importance, everything else becomes distraction and can be set aside. Waiting is active. Waiting implies that a person is prepared for what is about to happen. Waiting is active because you made the choice to do nothing else but prepare and wait. There are no other tasks than what is coming so you set everything aside except for what will prepare you for what is to come. Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome (8:22-28), reminds them that the hope they have is not for what they have already seen but for that which they wait for patiently, with the Holy Spirit helping them in their weakness.
Throughout the season of Advent, we are going to take a reading from Isaiah, Psalms, an Epistle, and the Gospel of Matthew. These passages paint pictures of the future hope and the peace that will come. We can become so preoccupied with the world around us that we lose sight of the reality that is to come that we forget to wait patiently. This waiting looks like peace amongst the chaos. While the world invests their energy in wars and conflicts over power and land, we wait patiently and peacefully for the one who holds true power over all things and all land is his.
Our reading for this week: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalms 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
The focus of our lesson will be on the Gospel reading from Matthew. In the days of Noah, people were living life as normal right up to the moment the door shut on the ark. They were preoccupied with life and Noah was actively waiting for what was to come. His active waiting meant he was focused on the task at hand rather than distracted by the everyday life of the world in which he lived. When the flood came, who was taken and who was left behind? The answer is in verse 39 and provides important context for the misreading of this passage by “Rapture teachings.” In the coming of the Son of Man, we will be going on about life, but some will be taken, and others will be left. Those who are unprepared and distracted by the regular goings-on of life will be taken and those who are actively waiting will be left behind.
God created this creation as good and intends to return and restore this creation as good. We are to be actively waiting for this goodness to be restored when God comes back. We do not know the time of his arrival, but we wait for it patiently. The early church expected Christ’s return within a generation. Some of Paul’s early teachings reflect that he believed Christ would return in his lifetime. We need to reclaim some of that urgency and reprioritize our energy into things that will last forever.
What occupies most of your time and energy?
What are you doing to find rest in the peace of waiting for Christ’s return?
What in your life threatens that peace?
How well are you prepared for Christ to come?
For further reading in Matthew on waiting:
The Parable of the Weeds (13.24–35)
The Beginning of the Birth Pangs (24.1–14)
The Coming of the Son of Man (24.29–35)
The Wise and Wicked Slaves (24.45–51)
The Wise and Foolish Girls (25.1–13)
Gethsemane (26.36–46)