What Are We Waiting For?

Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near [James 5:7-8].

Our Mother would sometimes repeat a story from her youth, a story that was played out similarly in many houses across rural America in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1934, a month or so before her 10th birthday in late November, her parents had given her a strict price limit—less than half a dollar—and had allowed her to choose anything she wanted from the Sears mail order catalog. She made her choice. Grandmother Lib completed the order form and mailed it. Then our mother started her “vigil.”

Beginning the following day—it would take several days for the order form even to reach Sears—she squirmed at school, giddy with anticipation. Each day, when she arrived at her house, she’d run inside to see if her present had arrived. Days passed, no package. Then a week slowly move by, then two weeks, then three, still no package. Her parents kept telling her it would take time, but she couldn’t understand. Where was her promised gift? She would later admit that when the package finally arrived, the reality of the gift was less thrilling than the anticipation.

Mother’s story reminds me that there are at least three kinds of waiting. There’s the kind she experienced. One anxiously awaits a special event that is going to occur soon; it’s just that the exact timing is unknown. That’s the kind of waiting with which Mary, the Theotokos (i.e., the mother of God), was familiar. She was young, a virgin, unmarried, and yet pregnant. The exact date of her son’s birth was not know to her, but the reality of His arrival upon the earth was in her heart. And so, she sang out her Magnificat [Luke 1:46 et seq.]. It’s the kind of waiting experienced by her cousin Elizabeth, who would bear a son they’d later call “John the Baptizer.” To an aged woman like Elizabeth, there was the extra layer of anxiety regarding her ability to give birth to any child.

Second, there’s the type of waiting that is common among children at this time of the year as they anticipate the arrival of St. Nick. It’s somewhat different from Mother’s wait in 1934. The anticipation is like my mother’s, but unlike her situation, the date of the event is fully known. It will occur on December 25th—not before, and not after. During this special time of waiting, churches that follow the liturgical calendar typically light a special candle each Sunday until we reach Christmas Day. We wait, but we wait for a specific moment in time.

Finally, there’s a third kind of waiting—the most difficult—the kind that was written about by the author of the NT book of James in the second reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent (RCL, Year A)]. The passage is James 5:7-10. The writer describes the sort of prayerful waiting when there appears to be precious little assurance that the event or promise will ever occur. This is the type of faithful waiting experienced by Abraham and Sarah. Yahweh promised that a mighty nation would spring up from the two of them, one of whom was almost a 100 years old, the other a faithful, yet barren wife. Abraham and Sarah knew not when the promise might be fulfilled. They believed in the promise and, in a sense, waited for it, but in their hearts, they recognized that they’d never actually see its fulfillment. Still, they waited.

It’s the kind of waiting experienced by the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. When would they reach the Promised Land? Would they reach the Promised Land? It’s the kind experienced by Jewish exiles as they toiled in Babylon for 70 years after their defeat in 587 B.C.E. Would they ever return to Jerusalem? Could they ever rebuild the temple? It’s the kind of waiting experienced by Palestinian Jews in the first century of the common era. Would the promised Messiah ever come? In truth, it’s the kind of waiting that Christians experience every day, but particularly during Advent.

At this time of year, we wait with special anticipation. As we read through our Advent devotionals, as we steal a quick listen to Christmas carols, as we gather on Sundays and light the Advent wreath, are we waiting for Christmas, the commemoration of the birth of Jesus, or are we waiting for the Parousia—the Second Coming of Christ? The answer, of course, is “Yes.”

We anticipate the special day in which we celebrate our Lord’s humble birth, a day of shepherds, Magi, stars, and angels. Yet we also acknowledge that we’re waiting for something even more profound. We’re waiting for the moment in which our Lord will return, when the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled in all its power and splendor, a redemptive day in which all darkness will be dispelled, and yet a terrifying day, because many of us have become quite accustomed to sustaining ourselves in the darkness.

The passage from the Epistle of James looks forward to the Parousia, not backward to Bethlehem. And while Martin Luther referred to the letter as the “Epistle of Straw,” it has a lot to offer. In this week’s passage, we are admonished to be patient “until the coming of the Lord” [5:7].

I hesitate to be so blunt, but shouldn’t someone point out that Christians have now most assuredly been waiting for the coming of the Lord for almost 2,000 years? To be sure, perhaps our waiting has been less than patient but, as some scholars argue, the core question with which the church has had to deal over these many centuries is “Why hasn’t He yet returned?”

The answer, of course, is a rather terse, “It has not yet suited His desires and purposes.”

So, we’re back to waiting. The author of the epistle lifts up the humble farmer as a model. The farmer waits patiently for both the early and the late rains. Three weeks after the farmer plants his/her seeds, does the farmer wonder why the crops aren’t ready for harvest? Of course, not, and so, the author of James reminds us of that fact. The farmer knows that one must be patient; impatient anxiety won’t make the crops grow faster. Impatient pacing on the carpet won’t hasten our Lord’s return.

The writer of the Epistle offers another interesting—and important—observation: Waiting isn’t passive. A farmer’s work doesn’t end with the planting. To be sure, the farmer must wait for the seeds to sprout and mature, for the crop to grow to maturity, and for the day of harvest. But in the meantime, the farmer isn’t idle. Instead, the farmer tends to the fields, removes weeds, and otherwise cultivates. He or she constructs and/or repairs fences to keep unwanted animals away from the growing crops. Soil moisture is monitored. So is the level of fertilizer. All sorts of effort continues while the farmer waits.

And so, the author of James gives us that same advice. In the meantime, between now and the coming of the Lord—whenever that might be—we wait. But like the farmer, we do not wait with passivity. Our wait is altogether active. While we anticipate the Parousia, we are not to sit on our hands, nor twiddle our thumbs. The author of the epistle challenges us to consider the prophets [5:10].

We raise our eyebrows and say, “Consider the prophets?” That is to say that if we have full faith in our Lord’s return, in His own time, and in His own way, why should we engage in any extraordinary activity at all?

The answer is clear. We are not to be idle while we wait, because Christ is not idle while He waits. Until His return, Christ is wonderfully active. Until His return, Christ resides within us. As St. Paul wrote to the church in Galatia:

I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me [Galatians 2:20].

And so, as foreign to our earthly nature as this might sound, while we wait, we are to be Christ to those who need Him. As we live our lives in anticipation of what may only come after our deaths, we are to display and bring to everyone we encounter all of Christ’s healing love and sacrificial concern, because if we don’t bring it to them —at least until He returns—who will?

So go ahead; bring it! What are We waiting for?