I remember as a child the thrill and excitement of waiting for Christmas morning to arrive. It was difficult to contain my eagerness of getting everyone up on that morning and making a mad dash to the Christmas tree to see what might be under it and around it.
The wait from November all the way to the end of December seemed like lifetimes upon lifetimes. But the waiting was somehow good, making Christmas morning sweeter and happier. This is the magic of Christmas. And it is the wonder of Advent. Christmas brings us the wonder, and Advent reminds us that waiting for the wonder to arrive is completely worthwhile.
Galatians must have been a very difficult letter for Paul to write. It is never easy to chastise, rebuke and attempt to correct a wayward friend. But that is precisely what Paul was doing in that letter. In chapter 5, while chastising the Galatians for attempting to add to their faith in Christ a work of the law in a vain attempt to earn God's grace, Paul says this in verse 5: "For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness."
While reading this earlier this month, I immediately thought what a great picture of Advent and the waiting for Christmas. For indeed, Christmas and the birth of Jesus is the beginning of God's work to bring us righteousness.
As we find ourselves trapped in a fallen world that bears so many scars and wounds, even in a festive holiday season, we do eagerly anticipate the hope that God's final delivery of righteousness will bring. It is a hope that one day all of the shootings, all of the tragic accidents, all of the ravaging diseases, all of the angry wars and all of the vacant stares of starving children will be gone. It is the hope that they will be replaced by God's new creation for those who have been made righteous.
As an adult, I no longer wait for Christmas morning with the same eagerness and excitement that I once did. But I look in the eagerness of my children, read this verse in Galatians, and I am reminded of my own eager hope for the redemption and restoration of the world. Waiting is not so bad when we are able to wait in the hope that great good and delight awaits us at its end.
As you wait this Advent season, wait with hope. Christmas is but a picture of the great wonder that will come when this age finally winds to its end and the new one dawns. The greatest Christmases ever experienced or imagined cannot compare to the magic, wonder and fulfilled hope of that great day.