Who likes waiting…

Waiting is not a popular past time in our culture today. We have our photos developed at a One Hour Photo Shop, take our clothes to Same Day Dry Cleaners, and buy food at a fast food restaurant. We pay our bills over the phone and do our banking on the internet where there are no long lines of waiting people. When a lift takes a long to time to arrive, we give the button another series of rapid jabs. Children get impatient waiting for their parents to stop talking after church.

Parents teach their children how to wait patiently. They say things like -
"No, not now, you can have that when you're older."
"Just wait a while and I'll get it for you."
"Wait until your birthday."
"Wait a bit, and just be patient."

But somewhere along the line, those lessons about waiting are forgotten and so impatient drivers sit on our rear bumpers of those they think are going too slowly, people with very loud whispers complain about the person up front who has an article that needs a price checked at the supermarket, and our blood boils after pressing buttons on the phone as requested by the computerised voice on the other end only to be told that we have put on hold and that we are 26th in the queue.

And today we are waiting. What are we waiting for?

There are two kinds of waiting - passive waiting and active waiting. Let me illustrate what I mean in this way.


You are at the railway station. People are waiting for the arrival of a train. You notice that in one corner of the waiting room there is a man who has dozed off. He is waiting for the train but while he is waiting he is bored and so has decided to catch up on a little sleep. He thinks that there will still be plenty of time before the train arrives, and so for now he is sleeping. He is passively waiting.

Also waiting for the train is a little boy. He is excited about the arrival of the train and then riding on it. He can’t sit still and constantly goes to the station door and looks up and down the tracks, he chatters to the other people waiting about the arrival of the train, he even asks the sleepy man if he is getting on the train too. The little boy’s waiting is full expectation, excitement, waiting on tiptoe. He is anticipating that the train will arrive at any moment. He is actively waiting.

We can choose to wait passively. Like sitting in a waiting room at the doctor’s, flicking through magazines, day dreaming a bit, just filling in time until we are called into the doctor’s surgery. This kind of passive waiting doesn’t require much energy or attention. It requires no commitment on our part. If God wants us, he is all-knowing and he knows where to find us. In the meantime we deal with our own concerns, and look after our own need for leisure. There is no need to bother about prayer, worship, mission, the Bible, or with deliberately living the Christian life.

Or like the little boy at the train station we can wait with eager expectation. This waiting involves prayer, worship, mission, the Bible, and deliberately living the Christian life, going out of your way to serve others and not just looking after your own needs. You know that Jesus will return, and like the servant in the parable, his absence doesn’t mean forgetting about the master and what he wants you to do, but to actively wait and be prepared for whenever that moment of his arrival might be.


If you don’t believe that Jesus will return then it doesn’t matter what you do, but if you do believe that Jesus will keep his word and come again then we need to examine just how active we have been while we are waiting.

Advent is the season of the church year when we consider how well we are actively waiting for the return of Jesus. This is a good time to ask ourselves questions like...

How seriously have I taken the fact that Jesus died and rose for me?

How well have I been actively waiting or have I become disinterested?

We spend a lot of time waiting – someone worked out that we spend 6 months of our life sitting at traffic lights – but there is nothing more important to wait for than the return of Jesus. What we do while we are waiting is also important – are we like the man dozing in the railway station unaware of the approaching train, or are we eager and actively waiting like the little boy?

Jesus is coming. So let us make our Advent prayer "Come Lord Jesus".