A Time Of Waiting

It is the quintessential pose.
Pressing your nose up against the glass.
Looking out the window to see if you will be the first to see it.
Then all of a sudden, it comes.

One flake, then two.
Soon the walkways look as if someone sprinkled powered sugar over them.
Not long after that, the grass will be covered.
The first snowfall is always worth the wait.

I know with my own children, there was always one who wanted to be the first to go outside.
The first one outside meant the first one to make footprints in the snow.
To walk where no one else had walked before is very exciting.
To try to retrace your steps by walking in the same footprints is even more fun.

Winter always seemed to be a time of waiting.
Waiting for the snow to come.
Waiting to see if you had a snow day.
Waiting to see what presents would be under the tree on Christmas morning.

If I designed my own Christmas card, I would have a scene of anticipation.
I would have a nose pressed against the glass.
I would have children’s faces looking up to see the first snowflake.
I would have presents wrapped and hidden in a secret place.

However, if that is all our Christmas is about, then it will be empty.
All of those things, no matter how wonderful they are, do not last.
The presents that you so painstakingly wrapped will be torn open within minutes.
The snow that was in the forecast will eventually melt.

Waiting is hard for a child.
Young children with no sense of time, cannot discern how long the waiting will be.
They just know that it is interminably long.
They seem to think that the fulfillment of their waiting will never happen.

Advent is a time of waiting.
Children can learn how to wait and why we wait when we mark the season in special ways.
Years ago, I purchased an Advent Calendar from Desiring God ministries.
Desiring God is a ministry founded by John Piper, a teaching pastor and theologian.

The Advent calendar was called the Noel Calendar since Piper’s wife, Noel, designed it.
It is no longer available for purchase.
However, it is a treasure in our home.
It is simple and primitive, much like the first Christmas itself.

The Noel Calendar is a burlap banner.
There are 25 rustic figures.
Each day, a child removes a figure from the bottom and places it on the appropriate number.
A segment of the Christmas story that coincides with the figure is read.

On Christmas Day, the entire story is depicted, simply and accurately.
Our Noel Calendar hangs on the swinging door between our kitchen and our dining room.
It is seen every day.
It is pondered each day as well.

My youngest daughter benefited most from the Noel Calendar.
She was just the right age when the calendar first became available.
She loved it so much that she made an Easter Calendar using the same concept.
We bought all the primitive figures at a craft store, along with the burlap and she went to work.

Neither the actual Noel Calendar or my daughter’s Easter calendar is fancy.
That seems appropriate somehow.
Jesus could have come to earth with all the fanfare He deserves as the Son of God.
God the Father had a different plan for His Son’s coming.

Jesus would come to a young teenage girl who was betrothed to a carpenter.
Jesus would be delivered in another city where there was no room for Him.
Jesus would be born in a stable and placed in a manger.
Jesus would be quite ordinary in appearance.

There were 400 years of silence between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Four hundred years of people waiting for the Promise of God to appear.
When He came, He was not what people expected.
Many missed Him; many still do.

What kind of God would send His Son to earth as a baby?
What kind of God would choose a virgin to give birth to His Son?
What kind of God would have a simple carpenter be the husband of Mary and help raise Him?
What kind of God would put the infinite into the finite?

Jesus deserved to be worshiped.
Jesus deserved the rights of royalty since He left His throne to come to earth.
Jesus laid all that aside in order to save us.
Jesus became like us so that we could be like Him.

The fact that Jesus did not come with pomp and ceremony endears Him to me even more.
The fact that He became helpless is precious to me.
Jesus experienced everything that we experience so He would understand.
Jesus came and lived without sin; He died and rose again on the third day.

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip. (John 1:44-46)

Four hundred years of waiting for the Promised One to come.
The One that Moses wrote about in the Law.
The One the prophets foretold.
The long awaited One who came as a baby.

Pictures of anticipation.
Pressing a nose against the glass is one thing.
Searching Scripture for the Promise is quite another.
The Promise is there on every page; Jesus is there on every page.

Jesus has come.
Jesus will come again.
There was waiting for His first coming.
There is waiting for His second coming.

A time of waiting.
Kairos: the appointed time; the time of God’s choosing.
The fullness of time then and once more.
And we wait with anticipation.