Waiting with Hope

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Romans 8:24-25

The Church Year is like life.  Everyday is not a celebration, nor is every day a time of sadness.  As the liturgical calendar flips from the end of the church year to the Advent season, we enter this time of waiting.  Like the recipients of the promise of the coming Messiah, we also spend our days in waiting.  Our time of prayerful expectation is not for the Messiah’s first Advent, but His second Advent.  We have the hindsight to look back upon Christ as the fulfillment of all of the prophesies given to the people of God throughout time.  Day after day, year after year, century after century, the people living in darkness waited for the coming of the Light.  We know that the Light came into the world, but like the people of old, we live each day waiting for God to fulfill the promise of Christ’s coming again in glory.

Our patient waiting through the years is marked by hope.  When St. Paul uses that word, it has a different connotation than we normally associate with hope.  We might say, “I hope that we can order pizza for dinner tonight” or “I hope the Chiefs win on Sunday,” but there is no certainty in our words.  However, the hope that we have in Christ is sure and certain.  All of God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ.  We do not live wondering if something will happen a certain way.  Rather we know it to be true, the only thing of which we are not sure is the matter of when.  So we wait…patiently…with hope.

May this Advent season be a time for you to think not about the immediate gratification that we have grown to expect from our culture, but the discipline of waiting in prayer, waiting in patience, and waiting in hope as we look forward to the coming of the promised Messiah, now as a King in glory.

Prayer - Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. Rescue and protect us from the threatening perils of our sins by your might; for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Fraternally in Christ,

President Lee Hagan