No Shame For Those Who Wait

Advent is for waiting. And our Advent hope is rooted in sacred memory — the memory of the story of salvation that we tell through the Christian calendar. We begin the year-long telling of the salvation story, not by celebrating, but by waiting — waiting for God to act. But that’s the problem, we don’t really like waiting, because waiting is not having. Waiting assumes a kind of poverty, we wait because we lack. And in our Amazon and Instagram age of one-click consumerism and careful image cultivation we a conditioned to be ashamed of our poverty, of our lack, of our having to…wait. In our waiting it can feel like the embarrassment of sitting alone at a table for two and telling the maître d' that our date will show up any moment, yet inwardly we’re already feeling the shame of having been stood up. Our waiting has been in vain and we feel ashamed. But here’s the message of Advent: None who wait for God will be put to shame.