It is advent.
I am waiting – waiting for Your coming, Lord.
There are so many places where I wait for Your coming.
You came to Bethlehem, that tiny place of an almost forgotten promise.
You came to Nazareth, a in no way spectacular town,
and You came to Bethany, Capernaum, and Jerusalem.
There are places in my life that await Your coming.
Here – where Your message of reconciliation is so needed;
or there – where Your tears could fall like they did over Jerusalem.
I need You to come where it would take at least a choir of angels
to make the dullest of hearts aware of something eternal.
I wait for Your entrance into those dark places of disbelief –
the crude and mundane corners of my existence so in need of starlight illuminations.
Come where there is little privacy, comfort or warmth –
where animals feed and lowly service is offered.
How many times have I plunged headlong into the celebration of Your coming
without being assured of Your actual arrival?
I have gone more days than three “assuming You to be in our presence.”
But advent is not for scurrying or for assuming.
It is for waiting.
May I recognize You when You come
not as the peak moment of our preplanned celebration,
but as the subtle surprise,
the simple object of wonder,
the God of small things.
I wait. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
