Now We Wait

I think the second most hated word in my household, after no, is wait! Wait you can open your present tomorrow. Wait a minute, you have to have dinner before you eat your candy. Wait, you have to play with that outside. Gene, you have to wait until after the kids go to bed to play with Miguel’s remote control car!

Waiting! We hate it! Yet, it seems as if all of life is about waiting. You wait for the baby to be born, you wait for it to say its the first word, to take its first step. You have to wait until you are 16 to drive a car. You wait for the right man or woman to come along to get married, you wait for that promotion, your first home, or that new car or van. You wait on your husband to fix something. You wait on your wife to get ready.

Ed Watt was visiting a local department store with his wife. They had just purchased a piece of luggage and a cooler. As Ed was waiting for his wife to finish the rest of her shopping he dragged the luggage and cooler around with him to the shoe department. A clerk asked if he could be of assistance. “No, thank you," Ed replied. “I’m just waiting for my wife." At that point, a man behind him said, "I’m waiting for my wife, too, but I never thought of bringing a lunch and an overnight bag with me."

But waiting in real life isn’t always so humorous. It isn’t always about a positive expectation or change. Sometimes waiting is hard, even painful. Like when you are waiting while a loved one undergoes major surgery, waiting for test results regarding a life-threatening illness, waiting for your company decides who gets laid off, waiting at the bedside of a dying child.

Wait! Wait! Good or bad, the truth is most of us are waiting even now for something in our lives. And we don’t know what to do, we have no other choice but to wait for its outcome!

And then that was it, for nine months they waited and waited. We don’t find in the scripture any more angelic visits or affirmation of what the angels had said. How hard it must have been for them to endure the gossip, and looks while they waited. How many times they must have questioned themselves, questioned Did we really see an angel? Did she really say this child was going to be given the throne of David?

And then, finally, their son was born. But the wait didn’t seem to be over. “Joseph, if our son is to sit on the throne then why is he being borne here, here in a stable? Why am I having to lay him in a manger.” “I don’t know Mary, we will just have to wait on the Lord.” “How long are we going to have to wait? I wish I knew Mary. Well, what do we do now?” “I don’t know I guess we just keep on living in accordance with God Word.”

And so, on the eighth day, Mary and Joseph, being of Jewish origin and living under the law of the Old Testament, took their baby boy to be circumcised and named. Then they waited thirty-three more days, as according to the law, and carried their small son three miles to Jerusalem for the redemption and purification ceremonies at the temple. These two ceremonies were traditional in a Jewish home under according to the Old Testament law.

And so Mary and Joseph being poor took two turtledoves and headed for the temple

As they entered the temple area they were greeted by many different sights and sounds: the scent of incense; the money-changers at work; the lowing of the various animals awaiting purchase and sacrifice; the many priests with bloodied aprons; the prayers of those in the court of the women and Gentiles; the men reading out aloud scripture and a man by the name of Simeon.

He entered the temple the same day as Jesus and the HS told him, this is the Christ.  Simeon had to wait and now his wait was over and ours began.

He spoke to Mary, (vs 34).  Broke protocol by speaking to her and not Joseph. As is to say that Joseph wouldn’t see it but Mary would.

And so, we too are a waiting people. Not for the coming of a Messiah to save his people. No we are people who are waiting for the return of Messiah, to take us to be with him to His Father’s house. And like Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna we need to be expectantly ready to receive God’s promise. We need to prepared ourselves by following His word, worshipping and praising him in his temple. By making ourselves available to receive his promise by being in his presence and following his example on a daily basis. We need to wait with open, eager hearts living out God’s promise by telling others about this child of God who is the salvation for all people.

Story of telegraph operator. The young man got the job because he was not just waiting — all of the other men were waiting — but he was waiting expectantly.

We are sitting in the waiting room life But it is how we wait, and what we do with the waiting, that is important. The young man in that office was listening. And because he was, he was rewarded. Waiting does not mean just sitting down and doing nothing. You have to be watching and looking for God to fulfill his promise. You have to believe he is going to do it.

Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting” (The Message). God is creating his life within us, and we must wait for it to come to full term.

 By Fred Pratt Green

There's snow on the mountain and ice on the pond; The Wise Men are home now in the Back of beyond; The Shepherds have left us; the heavens are dumb; There's no one to tell us why Jesus has come.

The tree drops its needles, a sign we must go; But the long road to Egypt is covered in snow; And wherever we travel the food will be dear: Who knows what's before us this coming New Year?

But God's in his heaven, and Jesus has come. To show every sinner he's welcome back home, To be this world's Saviour from hunger and fear, And give us new courage to face the New Year. We have courage to face this New Year because of Jesus. He is Immanuel—God with us and for us.