In the meantime

I’m a fairly patient person, but only if I have something to do that will keep me busy while I’m waiting. I don’t usually mind sitting in a physician’s waiting room for an extra hour, because I usually have my laptop so I can work while I’m there. If there’s a backup on the interstate and I get stuck sitting in traffic, I always have something to read in the car with me.

Advent is about waiting, yes. But it is also about working, keeping busy in the meantime. Not just mindless work and busyness, but work with a purpose. Work that helps us move toward a more just and purposeful future.

That isn’t easy, because the waiting lasts, well, our entire lives.

Now that’s patience.

The good, but hard to accomplish, news is that we since we have a lifetime to wait, we also have a lifetime to do meaningful work. We can have that kind of patience when we realize we have something to do.

… [W]hat sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? …[I]n accordance with God’s promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by God at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. [From 2^nd Peter 3]

In God’s someday, there will be a place where righteousness feels at home. We might call that a pipedream. The faith word for it is hope.

Hope is made real when we wait for new heavens and a new earth by living lives that are just and peaceful, and by working for that justice and peace.

• We call out racism when we see it, and we examine our own hearts to see what bigotry is there.
• We see that the poor, the sick, the child, the elderly, the homeless, the immigrant, and the refugee are respected, just as Jesus respected them.
• We listen to the stories of abuse perpetrated by those in power, and we attempt to ensure that such abuse ends.
• We look for those whose rights are truncated because of who they are, and we change laws at local, state, and federal levels in order to establish and protect those rights.

Waiting for the day of the Lord. It takes great patience.

In the meantime we have lots of work to keep us occupied until God’s future is realized.

© 2017, Melissa Bane Sevier