The Big Reveal

My children are not good at waiting. Waiting in line, waiting to be seated, waiting for their turn in the bathroom. And of course waiting on Christmas. It would be nice to think we outgrow our impatience, but I don’t think we really do. Some things change, like waiting on my birthday is not quite as much a big deal as it was forty years ago, but in many ways I am still not good at waiting…waiting in line, waiting to be seated, waiting on my turn in the bathroom, and of course waiting on Christmas.

We all probably (hopefully) still have some leftover Halloween candy, and turkeys are already on sale for Thanksgiving. But department stores have been preparing for Christmas for weeks now. Decorations are ready for display, and shopping lists are ready to be made, events await to be scheduled. There are many preparations being already made for Christmas. And with good reason, there’s only 42 shopping days until Christmas! And sometimes that’s where our focus is this season.

Advent (which means coming or arrival) is the Christian season of four weeks that lead up to Christmas day, the day that we celebrate the advent of God with us through the physical birth of Jesus, the Messiah and anticipated Savior. This is also a reminder of looking forward to Jesus’ second Advent, the time when our Lord will return.

1 Corinthians 1:3-9 is a great place to plant ourselves to prepare for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This beginning part of the letter both gives thanks and praise, and looks toward (and back to) Advent.

Advent is a season of preparing, but it is also a season of waiting. Like the Christians that Paul wrote to in Corinth, we are waiting for the ultimate revealing of Jesus. “..as you eagerly await for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed” (1 Corinthians 1:7b). Waiting for the bridegroom to return for his bride, which the early Christians thought would happen soon. So they waited. And so we also wait.

 And while Christ has not been revealed fully yet, there is a daily unveiling of His presence among us even now. Perhaps when we are waiting with hands busy serving others and eyes fixed on Jesus we are seeing glimpses of His revealing. And we wait with a knowledge that He is always with us. We wait for Him who was here all along. But we wait to see Him as we truly is, so that we may ourselves as we truly are, revealed through Him. And so we wait. Here are a few questions to help us here:

“How am I waiting today for Jesus?”

“In what ways am I seeing Christ revealed today?”

“How am I revealing Christ to others today?”

How we answer these questions might reveal something about how we are waiting. May we be blessed in our preparing and in our waiting this season.