While We Wait

As I mentioned on Sunday, Advent is the season characterized by waiting. But this is not the kind of waiting we do at the checkout line. It is a holy waiting, a hopeful waiting, the waiting of a people who know Who is coming and what He brings with Him. James tells us, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.” And Matthew tells us of John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord through repentance.

Both of these readings ask a simple but profound question: How should God’s people wait? Not with servile fear. Not with boredom. Not with distraction or apathy. But with trust, patience, and repentance. And this is what we learn in Advent: that the waiting of faith is not empty. It is expectant. It is active. It is shaped by the Lord who has come, who still comes, and who will come again.

Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!