Advent 2011 : Day 25

Of course, we are not the only ones who wait, hopefully, for Jesus’ return.  God, too – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – waits; and the angels (and the demons, though not hopefully) with them.  And how do they wait?  Informed by their experience of waiting.  That God should come into the world as a baby – knowing almost nothing, and almost entirely unable to communicate even that – demonstrates a commitment to being human, to being formed through waiting.  And in Jesus, God still waits as a fully-human, as well as fully-divine, being.  That God should come into the world as a baby – knowing almost nothing, and almost entirely unable to communicate even that – demonstrates a commitment to waiting with humans, to being formed through their waiting.  A commitment to covenant relationship, which says what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine; a commitment to needing to call upon what is ours to give to him; a commitment to viewing us as equals – for the Church is described as Christ’s bride, and even the very body of Christ – not because the created has a right to call itself equal to the creator but because the creative Word has a right to be uttered into created flesh.

It is in asking us to wait, and entering into committed hopeful active contemplative waiting with us, that God honours us – not only ‘us’ humans but, by extension and by intimate connection, ‘us’ all of creation – more than we know or can imagine.  Because our waiting, with his, creates the very condition that is bringing about the new day we wait for.