Attentive Waiting

Readings:
Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12

As we continue the Advent journey, Pastor Mohn reminds us that while Isaiah has a future vision of what will come to be, we may have a hard time believing it can happen. John takes an angrier tone, claiming that someday, somehow, something will happen, but we also are called to “act now”.

But, along with such action, the reality is there is also “a waiting” during which we’re not sure, at all, what will happen. While we may be waiting in our daily lives … for that promotion, for the yearly bonus; over paperwork that will feed into our lives … college applications, a loan, and so forth, ALL of creation is “waiting patiently” for God to finish what God started in Jesus Christ.

What does it take to “wait on God” … well, there’s 2 sides:

One part of us asks “What am I going to do until “then”? and answers in “the passive”. Many of us take a “wait & see” approach, like watching the ketchup flow from the bottle, ever so slowly. Pastor Mohn reminds us that this thinking drives John the Baptist nuts! “Repent – they’re coming”. Alternatively, many of us think the world is nuts out there, and we’ll be content to sit tight ‘til He comes and “makes it right”.

I remember one Christmas season when I was traveling with my wife through Penn Station in NYC where I saw a sign for a fenced off waiting area advertising this as the Express Waiting Area. It had the ironic tinge of “non-stop, uninterrupted, accelerated waiting”, but what most characterized it was how it cordoned off its inhabitants who looked out onto the hustle-bustle of the traveling hordes and simply watched passively, waiting for their trains to where ever. It was markedly secuded and passive.

An alternative approach admits that Holy waiting is ACTIVE. A la John the Baptist. “Get out there and prepare ye the way of the Lord!” This active waiting does not necessarily imply “time busy”, but rather “Spirit busy” – stay busy in the Spirit!
Do not confuse this with distraction wherein we tend to make self the center. That takes us to where we’re not paying attention to what we’re waiting for.

Holy waiting is active and attentive, not “busy”!

It is one of being aware that God’s schedule and priorities are not ours. Holy waiting requires us to be attentive, listening to others and their needs. Holy waiting is a calling to live out our lives – in a spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of God.

This Spirit gives us help to see the future … with new eyes … and pull it into the present; it gives us the strength to live attentively; it gives us a different awareness, a different approach to time and our use of it.

Just when you think you understand something, you need to view it from a different perspective!

And if we have the faith to partake of attentive waiting, that view of the hopeful future will be one where the lion lies down with the lamb & all will be led by a little child.