Skip to Content Area

Waiting With Hope

Advent means coming. Each week as a different family lights our advent candles at the beginning of the service they have reminded us that the word advent means coming. As the saints of the Old Testament prepared themselves for a coming Messiah, so we too prepare ourselves for the second coming (theologians refer to it as the parousia) of Christ. How do we do this? One way we do it each year is by remembering the first advent and by celebrating Christmas as Jesus’ birth.

When I went through Air Force basic training, sometimes I had to pull night watch. That meant I was the door guard for our barracks from sometime after midnight until 4 in the morning. So I had a real opportunity to think about the words of the psalmist who said, “I wait on the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning.” How did I wait? I walked up and down the aisles of our barracks among the rows of sleeping young men and I would straighten up their hanging uniforms and make sure they were ready for inspection in the morning. If someone's pants were hanging backwards, or if his jacket was improperly buttoned, I would fix it there in the dark. Then when my shift was over I would wait for the morning—that moment when I would hear our Training Instructor sneak in to look for uniform infractions. I smiled in the dark as I listened to his steps, waiting for the morning knowing that he would have to commend our barracks for having excellent night displays. Having done the work of service, I looked forward to what the morning would bring.

How do we wait for Christ’s parousia, or second coming? I try to think of myself as I was back in basic training. This may be a time of darkness, a time when the full light of the morning has not shined, but we know it is coming. Christ will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess. 5:2). He will not come to rob us, or to look for clothing display infractions. He will surprise us with His grace in a new way. He will come to commend those who belong to Him by faith. He will commend those who were busy in the night doing the works of service prepared in advance for them to do (Eph. 2:10).

Gordon McDonald wrote an excellent book aimed at men titled Ordering Your Private World in which he used the metaphor of “midnight games.” These are the games that men wake up in the middle of the night and play asking themselves, “Have I done enough? Do I have enough? Am I enough?” He goes on to explain the grace available in Christ that rescues us from guilt-laden answers to those questions. The free grace of Christ poured out for us on the cross keeps us from the guilt of the midnight games. His grace toward us causes us to have deep gratitude and worship the risen Savior as we wait for the full light of day, and grace moves us to serve those around us knowing that we will be commended by the one who was and is and is to come.

Let us wait with hope in our great Savior. We wait for His parousia more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

In Him,

Tag

Contact

This field is required.
This field is required.
I need prayer I would like to volunteer I would like more information
Send
Reset Form