By Kristen Mudrack
I was reminded this week that Advent is a season of waiting with expectant joy and hope for the promised Messiah. The Israelites didn’t just have to wait four weeks, though. They waited nearly 2,000 years. Generations came and went before their hope was realized in a baby in a manger.
Perhaps this year, we understand waiting a little bit more. Waiting for things to go back to normal. Waiting for things to change. Waiting for 2021.
Waiting isn’t the thing I’ve had a hard time with. While the world is at my fingertips on my phone or my computer, I have always had to wait for something (and in the waiting, work for something). Waiting hasn’t been my problem this year – hoping has been.
I have found myself expectantly waiting for something – something good – and my hope has been dashed. Day after day, week after week, month after month. I have found myself wondering if I should hope at all, or if it would be better to give up this dream and move on.
The Israelites had been promised a Messiah, but generation after generation their hope was dashed, their priests and prophets disappointed that there wasn’t a Son of David on the throne. But while they were looking for a king, God sent a servant in the form of a baby. He wasn’t what they had expected, but he was what they needed, even if they didn’t know it then.
I have not been promised the thing that I hope for. That is the cold, hard truth. What I hope for may never come to pass. But perhaps in the waiting, God will reveal something better, something I don’t even know is possible. But that doesn’t make hope any easier for me.
Hope is hard. Hope is fragile and raw. It is difficult and hard and takes everything you have. And when that hope is dashed, shattered into pieces on the floor, I have to choose the hard thing again: hope. Not blind, but prayerful, expectant hope, that the One who makes all things new will renew hope in me again and again and again, to the glory of His name.
May you hope anew today, no matter what it is you are hoping for. May you pray expectantly and listen to the voice of the one who came to Earth as the one we needed, though not the one we expected.