Waiting

"He who is mighty has done great things. For me." (Luke 1:46-55)

Waiting.

I'm not good at it. I'm a pacing in front of the microwave, check phone every 3 minutes, countless webpage refreshing type. If the waiting goes on too long, I'll probably give up, or try to convince myself that whatever I'm waiting for wouldn't be very good anyway. That I never really wanted it.

It's easy for waiting to feel like absence. A lack. An empty space where you long for there to be a person. A hunger that lingers.

Our culture doesn't really do delayed gratification. Long term waiting is never sold to us as a desirable state of affairs. But Christian hope is all about waiting. Want to know God? Well, it's definitely going to involve waiting.

But we wait, like Mary, knowing that although we can't see it yet - it is happening. God's redemptive work has started and it is unstoppable.

If Christmas shows us anything, it shows us that God cares intimately for the weak, the humble and the overlooked. For the weary ones who have given up waiting. Jesus shows up, where we were not looking for him and where we would never expect him. When we've given up, and concluded that we've been forgotten  - that's when he comes.

I love the way that Mary talks about God. He is mighty. She is stunned that a God who is so majestic and holy has chosen to bless her. "He who IS MIGHTY has done GREAT things FOR ME."

Mary knows that satisfaction for the hungry is coming. The reality is she won't see it for years. She praises God but she is still waiting. And 2000 years later, we're still waiting for the gap between faith and sight to close. But with Mary we can take comfort from the fact that Jesus himself became a part of our waiting. He who is mighty has done great things for us.

And greater things are coming.

Come quickly, long expected Jesus!

(Repost from December 2014. This year stay tuned for a proper Advent series....)