Waiting for our blessed hope.
Waiting for our blessed hope.
Advent is filled both with the ache of what is and the hope of what is to come.
Out of all the familiar and favorite texts of Scripture we often read around the holidays, Paul’s letter to Titus is not likely one of the first passages that comes to mind. This is unfortunate, though, since what the apostle says to his disciple serves to encapsulate not only what Christmas is all about but also what the season leading up to Christmas (a.k.a. Advent) is meant to remind us of. Even though my particular ecclesiastical tradition is rather light on any kind of formal liturgy (let’s hear it for the Baptists!), the significance of Advent is nonetheless fitting for us to consider. Beginning with the three to four Sundays before Christmas Day, the church is made to recall the story of Jesus’s birth through the season of Advent, after which the church moves into Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and then back to Advent again. Through these liturgical seasons, the Body of Christ is collectively invited to follow the story of their faith from Christ’s nativity to the earliest days of the church itself. And the more we are reminded of this story — and of our place in it — the more we are fortified to live by faith and not by sight.
As always, though, the church’s liturgy begins with Advent, which is a season that is best understood through Paul’s words in Titus 2:13, where he enjoins his protégé to wait for his “blessed hope.” This appeal to wait has the connotation of waiting on the edge of your seat in eager expectation of something. A fitting illustration is the anticipation that might be found in a delivery room where a mother awaits the birth of her child. During those hours that often feel like days, the whole family waits with bated breath, on the edge of their seats, eagerly anticipating the arrival of their child, grandchild, or sibling. There is a joyful air of expectation that fills that space. However, there is another aspect of waiting that isn’t accompanied by the same air of excitement. Sometimes — oftentimes — waiting can feel like languishing; as if you’re merely withering away as time keeps on going all around you. To languish while you wait is to ache or to grieve in those interim periods; it’s the feeling of being forgotten. This is, perhaps, what is most often associated with waiting since nobody likes to wait for anything.
In a society that prizes productivity over everything else, waiting is the worst form of inefficiency. No one enjoys waiting, and yet we are often forced to do just that: we sit in waiting rooms, we wait in traffic, and we are waited on by waiters in restaurants. Even more frustrating, though, is when we are forced to wait for bigger things, like a promotion at work, or for “the one” to come along. Waiting for those things rarely feels like the joyful anticipation of a newborn. It feels like languishing; it feels like you’re waiting for what will never arrive. The point is, that the waiting of Advent includes both types of waiting. The season of Advent that anticipates the arrival of God in the flesh is preceded by a period of waiting that is filled with both the ache of what is and the hope of what is to come. And there is, perhaps, no better character in Scripture to illustrate this than that of Simeon.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. (Luke 2:25)
It is telling that Simeon is described as a man who was not only “righteous and devout,” but also was “waiting for the consolation of Israel.” Waiting, we could say, is sort of what he was known for. Although we are not informed of his age, traditionally he is depicted as an elderly man, which is just to say that he’s been waiting for a long time. Eventually, Simeon is told by God that his waiting would be worth it. “It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit,” Luke records, “that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26). Like many before him, Simeon was a “faithful waiter.” The religious tradition of the Jews was rooted in “waiting for the consolation of Israel,” which was shorthand for the Messiah. This precious truth stretches back to the days of Adam and Eve, all the way through the days of the prophets. The hope of every Jew was tethered to the story told long ago that the seed of the woman would one day appear to crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).
This was the message of salvation for which all of God’s people were waiting. Indeed, this is what had defined them since the days of Jacob, who, on his deathbed, declared, “I wait for your salvation, O Lord” (Gen. 49:18). King David, likewise, repeatedly cries out: “Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame” (Ps. 25:3). “You are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long” (Ps. 25:5). “May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you” (Ps. 25:21). “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
(Ps. 27:14). “Those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land” (Ps. 37:9). “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you” (Ps. 39:7). “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry” (Ps. 40:1). “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (Ps. 130:5). This waiting became even more pronounced when God’s people were forced into exile:
Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isa. 25:9)
O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble. (Isa. 33:2)
The picture that Scripture paints for us reveals that waiting for “the Lord’s Christ,” that is, the Messiah, has been the perpetual posture for God’s people for ages. And filling all those long years of waiting was not always sunshine and rainbows. Indeed, throughout all those long years of waiting, God’s people both rejoiced and languished as they were privy to great triumphs and glaring tragedies, the likes of which gave them reasons to feel forgotten. It would’ve been very easy to feel as if their waiting was “in vain,” which is why the Scriptures are brimming with reminders to wait on the Lord and to trust in what God’s Word says, in what he’s promised, despite the surrounding circumstances.
This is Simeon, who was of the generation that hadn’t heard from God in over four hundred years. And yet, he was aware that his time wouldn’t run out until he saw the Christ of God. Therefore, every venture to the Temple was, for Simeon, brimming with eager expectation, as he wondered if that day would be “the day,” when he would finally catch a glimpse of the Messiah, his people’s hope. At the same time, though, we can certainly imagine days when Simeon’s waiting was less than hopeful or thrilling. He was, no doubt, familiar with oppression since all of Judea was made to feel the pain of being tyrannized. Having returned to their homeland after years of exile, Israel’s languishing was now prolonged by the iron fist of Caesar. But all the while God’s people were waiting, and, as Simeon would soon find out, their waiting would not be in vain:
Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:25–32)
After waiting and waiting, and waiting, Simeon was at long last seeing “the consolation of Israel” with his own eyes. But more than just “see” him, he was holding him in his arms. Simeon was graced with the gift of embracing the very one for whom he had waited. The month-old newborn cooing in his arms was all the evidence he needed that every Word of God would be fulfilled. And in that regard, Simeon is an example to us. The way in which he waited for his “blessed hope” informs us how to wait for ours.
“Waiting for our blessed hope,” Paul attests, “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). The apostle’s encouragement to the pastor of Crete is not alluding to the first advent or First Noël. Rather, he’s referring to the Second Advent. Paul has in mind the end of all things when the Lord himself will appear in the fullness of his might, majesty, and glory. But these words are not only for Titus, they are for us, too, since we, like Titus, are invited to wait “for our blessed hope,” even if our waiting might be brimming with perplexity, heartache, and pain. “The coming of the Lord,” writes R. Lucas Stamps, “only makes sense to a people who know what it means to wait.” Even though our waiting might be a mix of rejoicing and languishing; even though all around us there seems to mount reason after reason to question what God has promised; even though the world seems to be growing darker and wearier by the day, Advent serves to remind us that “blessed are all those who wait for him” (Isa. 30:18).
The good news of Advent is that which gives us certainty and confidence in our waiting because the good news of Advent is none other than the “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). It is the glad announcement that the Light of the World has come to push back the darkness. Just as God fulfilled his word for those who waited for his First Advent, so, too, will he fulfill his word for those who await his Second. The waiting of Advent, you see, is an invitation to come face-to-face with our frailty and weakness. It’s a reminder that though our world may be sick with sin and death, it is precisely “those who are sick” that the Christ of God came to rescue and redeem (Mark 2:17). “Advent,” R. Lucas Stamps concludes, “is not about sappy sentimentalism, gauzy nostalgia, and cheap grace. It is about a ‘weary world’ in desperate need of rejoicing.” As we wait for that “rejoicing,” our “blessed hope” remains the fact that the Lord of all glory and grace will one day appear to bring us home with him forever. And on that day, as the carol says, our souls will be filled with “a thrill of hope [as] the weary world” will be made to rejoice in its Savior, and yonder will break a new and glorious morn.
Merry Christmas, friends!