Advent Waiting, Earthly Waiting

Auditions were last night...I may or may not have audition video to post later...but B16, B12 and Chicklet8 all did very well.

All three are at callbacks as I write.  B16 is called back to read and sing for Captain Von Trapp, B12 is a potential Friedrich or Rolf, and Chicklet8 will be considered for one of the younger three Von Trapp girls.

And I am waiting.

Waiting makes me think of Advent, yet Advent waiting is so different than earthly kinds of waiting.  We wait for the cast list to come out in the next 24 hours or so, but we don't know what the waiting holds.  The news may be disappointing, or it may be the fulfillment of hopes.

Advent waiting, however, is a waiting filled with promise.  We don't have to worry that at the end of the wait, there may be disappointment or unfulfilled expectations. Even though we can hardly imagine what we are waiting for, we trust--we know--that it will be all good.  Christ's coming will be the fulfillment of all that we have ever longed for.

When a baby is born, we wait.  We don't know how short or long a life will be.  We don't know what lies ahead for ourselves or for our loved ones.  We wait through trials, through illness, through challenges. We wait in fear of the worst, and in hope of joy.

And we trust in a God who sees it all, sees the darkness and the light ahead of us, sees it all and is bigger and brighter than any darkness we could enter.

Eyes on him, we wait.

The longest night of the year approaches.  But it is as the days begin to lengthen that we celebrate Christ's coming to earth.

He is here now; God with us, Emmanuel.

He will return to earth to judge the living and the dead, to set to rights all that is amiss, to restore God's kingdom in a new heaven and a new earth, and to satisfy all our righteous hopes and desires.  He will be the fulfillment of every good desire, the joy we have always anticipated and cannot sustain in earthen vessels.  In him is no shadow, no disappointment, no possibility of unfulfillment.

Advent waiting is the anticipation of fulfillment, the fulfillment of everything.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.