Waiting, waiting, waiting....

There was a song that I liked to listen to called "The Waiting" by Tom Petty. The line that hit me in the song was "The waiting is the hardest part". And waiting is extremely tough! My wife and I just experienced the joy of the birth of our second daughter, Emily. She was born one day before her due date. And when we went in for induction at 6 AM, we figured it wouldn't be long and we'd be meeting her. And we waited....and we waited....finally, we experienced the joy of seeing her at 5:45 PM. Quite a long day of waiting, following up 9+ months of more waiting!

In the church, we experience a season called Advent. Most of the world around wants it to be Christmas. But it's not yet. Why do we Christians do this to ourselves? Why can't we just start singing the Christmas Carols now? That way, we can sing them longer! Well, it comes back to why even celebrate Christmas? Is it for Santa Claus, the gifts, the food, the decorations? No, those aren't the real reasons. You see, Christmas really is a means to an end. While singing about the birth of the baby Jesus is great and wonderful, it's really not about THAT birth. It's about OUR birth into heaven. We're happy to be around cute little babies, and rejoice with parents who are bleary eyed and overwhelmed with what to do with this new little bundle of joy. We're not so happy to be at funerals. We don't like death. We like life. But the problem is, our thinking is backward. Death=Life. The birth of Jesus starts a chain reaction of events in God's plan of salvation, culminating on Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead. If we stop with the baby Jesus in the manger, we're only telling half of the story.

There's a song by the band Relient K that I really like, called "I Celebrate the Day". A powerful lyric in the song is "I, I celebrate the day that You were born to die." That's it! That's what we're doing as Christians. We rejoice at the birth of Jesus, and we give gifts to others because of that beautiful, amazing and undeserved gift that God has given to us in salvation!

So why wait? That's what life is about. Waiting for a child to be born, waiting in lines, waiting in traffic, waiting, waiting, waiting. The anticipation of what's to come starts to build, whether that's Christmas, getting to our destination, opening that special present, or getting to heaven! As we wait, let's tell the story as often and as loudly as we can. And in that waiting, we get to practice patience, something we all need practice at! But when we're done waiting here on earth, what joy will be ours in heaven!