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Are we still waiting (2 December)

Are we still waiting?

In this time of Advent we often reflect in being in the season of waiting.  This makes me think about who is waiting in the birth narratives of Jesus?

Certainly Mary is waiting as the baby grows in her womb and she experiences all of the changes in her body every pregnant woman goes through.  Joseph is waiting, hoping he has made the right decision and that perhaps what the angel said is going to be true.  Other characters we don’t know anything about – Mary and Joseph’s parents and wider family are waiting.  Good Jewish people, are they waiting in hopeful expectation, or did they think Mary and Joseph had misheard the angelic message, are they sceptics?  Elizabeth is waiting, both for her baby and for the baby of her cousin Mary.  Zechariah is waiting, may be in frustration at not having accepted what was said to him and now he can’t speak to share the news of what is to come.

These are the obvious characters, just waiting.

However, what about the shepherds – are they waiting, looking to the skies for a sign, I think not.  I think perhaps they represent most of humanity who are just getting on with their daily lives and in the grind of their daily living, they cannot realise that the Son of God is about to break in and reveal himself to them.  The Magi are waiting, they have been searching skies and charts for many years looking for a sign.  What sign are they looking for?  They aren’t necessarily seeking the Jewish Messiah.  What they see in their waiting is a very unusual star, which they follow and they knew was of powerful significance. I believe they were waiting to see what that meant as they travelled.

They are journeying towards revelation.

Perhaps another person who is waiting but is not mentioned in the biblical narratives but in our extension of the story, is the innkeeper.  He had heard the news of a census being called, he and probably his wife are in the hospitality industry, crowds coming to Bethlehem mean an upturn in trade.  They are waiting for the visitors, making room for as many as they could, stocking up with food and drink, maybe raising their prices, they aren’t waiting for a messenger from heaven or a messiah to arrive. Yet in their busyness, they choose invitation to the heavily pregnant young woman and her man, an invitation to enter the most humble space they had left and there the star settled overhead.  The child was born and the waiting was over.

The people who are waiting are those who know and are expectant, the sceptical who fear to trust, the ordinary who haven’t even looked up from what they are doing, the scientists looking for evidence, the hospitable who provide the welcome.

So questions for us to ponder:

As followers of Jesus, are we still expectant or have we become tarnished with scepticism and are fragile at this time in our trust of almighty God?

Who do you know who is waiting, but doesn’t yet know it, who is looking in the wrong direction for revelation and may be in need of a star to follow?

Who, in this time of waiting, is in need of an invitation, a welcome to join Jesus, from you or me?