Being Patient
December 7, 2022 at 11:45 p.m.
Third Sunday of Advent
Have you written your Christmas list? Maybe you don’t write a letter to Santa in the North Pole anymore. Maybe you don’t even write your wishlist with pen and paper anymore. These days you can just text an Amazon link to your parents and unwrap it on Christmas morning knowing exactly what you ordered.
But today, I want you to think back, to reflect and remember what Christmas was like as a child. The excitement around getting a tree, trying to narrow your list down to which toy was the most important one to ask Santa for. Maybe you visited Santa in the mall as a family or baked cookies to leave out on Christmas Eve. The anticipation of Christmas morning is almost a universal experience in childhood.
This Advent we’ve been reflecting on the importance of this holiday, or rather feast day, in our faith. We are awaiting the gift that is the birth of Christ. In the second reading on Sunday we read “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.” During Advent, on one hand we are counting down the days until Jesus is born on Christmas day, but on the other, we are waiting and anticipating the coming of Christ in the Second Coming, at judgment day. We read in Scripture, we know neither the day nor the hour that Jesus will come again. And so we wait patiently. The same way you used to wait patiently on Christmas morning for your parents to wake up so you could go downstairs. Patient waiting doesn’t take away from the excitement of anticipation, it just refers to a peace we feel in the waiting, a patient waiting is different than an anxious waiting.
There’s sometimes a debate about when to listen to Christmas music, whether it is after Thanksgiving, or on November 1st. Some people start their Christmas countdowns in the summer! Christmas is something that people look forward to for a long time. This Sunday is the Third Sunday or Advent, Gaudete Sunday, or Rejoicing Sunday, and we light the rose colored candle. We are rejoicing! Joyful that the wait is almost over! Christ is almost here!
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Third Sunday of Advent
Have you written your Christmas list? Maybe you don’t write a letter to Santa in the North Pole anymore. Maybe you don’t even write your wishlist with pen and paper anymore. These days you can just text an Amazon link to your parents and unwrap it on Christmas morning knowing exactly what you ordered.
But today, I want you to think back, to reflect and remember what Christmas was like as a child. The excitement around getting a tree, trying to narrow your list down to which toy was the most important one to ask Santa for. Maybe you visited Santa in the mall as a family or baked cookies to leave out on Christmas Eve. The anticipation of Christmas morning is almost a universal experience in childhood.
This Advent we’ve been reflecting on the importance of this holiday, or rather feast day, in our faith. We are awaiting the gift that is the birth of Christ. In the second reading on Sunday we read “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.” During Advent, on one hand we are counting down the days until Jesus is born on Christmas day, but on the other, we are waiting and anticipating the coming of Christ in the Second Coming, at judgment day. We read in Scripture, we know neither the day nor the hour that Jesus will come again. And so we wait patiently. The same way you used to wait patiently on Christmas morning for your parents to wake up so you could go downstairs. Patient waiting doesn’t take away from the excitement of anticipation, it just refers to a peace we feel in the waiting, a patient waiting is different than an anxious waiting.
There’s sometimes a debate about when to listen to Christmas music, whether it is after Thanksgiving, or on November 1st. Some people start their Christmas countdowns in the summer! Christmas is something that people look forward to for a long time. This Sunday is the Third Sunday or Advent, Gaudete Sunday, or Rejoicing Sunday, and we light the rose colored candle. We are rejoicing! Joyful that the wait is almost over! Christ is almost here!