Waiting
Photo by Agê Barros on Unsplash
We’ve all been doing a lot of waiting. Waiting for lockdown to end. Waiting for schools to restart. Waiting for government announcements. Waiting for church to meet in person. Waiting for the next parcel to be delivered.
Waiting is strange. It has so many forms. Some waiting is rather appealing. We eagerly anticipate the arrival of a good friend. We long for the start of the summer holidays. ‘I can’t wait’, we say. But, of course, we can. Indeed we must, because most of the time we have no choice. Not waiting simply isn’t an option open to us.
Unless of course we are choosing to wait. We do that too. We put off watching the last episode of a box set. We delay reading the final chapter of a book. The sense of anticipation is so sweet that we choose to go on waiting so we can savour the prospect for a little bit longer.
But we have other reasons to postpone the moment of gratification because we also know that after fulfilment, anti-climax will often follow close behind. The series is finished, the visit has happened, the holiday is over, or the book has been completed. Something we loved so much and anticipated so eagerly has been and gone and a terrible sense of loss takes its place. So, we move on. We find something new to look forward to. Something else to wait for.
Yet, not all waiting is so delightful. There is terrible waiting too. The kind of waiting that feels more like dread – waiting for a medical procedure, waiting for bad news, waiting for a sad departure. Here we voice a different desire. ‘I just want to get it over with’, we say. And, when we can, we do. Instead of dragging out a departure, we leave at once.
Christian believers are a people who wait. It is central to the faith. And others wait with us. According to Romans 8, the whole of creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19). Something is coming that is so life-changing, so earth-shattering that every part of creation will be caught up in it. Christian believers are ‘looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.’ (2 Peter 3:13)
Anticipating that glory, Jesus urged his followers to wait well. He told them to be ‘like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet’, so that, when he returns, ‘they can immediately open the door for him.’ (Luke 12:36). Christians, according to the writer to the Hebrews are ‘those who are waiting’ for Jesus to bring salvation to them. (Hebrews 9:28)
The Bible makes clear that we aren’t in control of this waiting. No one knows the timing of the end, not even the Son of Man (Mark 13:32). So we wait patiently, faithfully, prayerfully for the end to come convinced that ‘it will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or towards daybreak’ (Luke 12:38). This waiting, however, will not give way to anti-climax. Eternity isn’t like that.
At present the reason we have to wait is because we are creatures bounded by time. The everlasting God isn’t like that. As CS Lewis put it, [God’s] life does not consist of moments one following another...Ten-thirty-- and every other moment from the beginning of the world--is always Present for Him. In times of suffering, Christian believers always seem to shift their attention to the End. We see it in the book of Daniel during the Old Testament exile. We see it in the book of Revelation during the persecution of the early church.
Whenever we grapple with difficulties – whether in our world or in our individual lives – we would do well to follow this example and look to the End. To remember that we are waiting for something so good, so perfect, so excellent that nothing we have ever known will come close to comparing with it. We should also remember that this good thing is a person. We wait for the blessed hope – the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:13). In Him, there will be no anti-climax. No waning of delight.
In our ‘instant age’, lockdown has been hard. But if it teaches us to wait well – to wait patiently; to wait expectantly; to wait faithfully – it may just have served a purpose more precious than we can imagine. It will, in fact, have been well worth the wait.