Advent is by very definition a season of waiting. Waiting for God to move. Waiting for promises to be fulfilled. Waiting for the redemption of all things. Israel was waiting for Messiah. We are waiting for Messiah’s return.
Waiting is difficult. Everything in our technology-driven world aims at the quick, convenient, and instantaneous. We live for instant gratification. But living by faith means trusting in what we do not yet see.
Living by faith requires waiting. We live in the middle of God’s salvation history. We’ve seen so much of God’s salvation, and yet there is so much yet to come. We know our God is trustworthy, and yet there is so much unknown between where we are now and our final destination. That gap in the middle is full of hardship, trials, suffering, and weariness.
In Luke 2, we meet a man named Simeon who has been waiting for the consolation of Israel and the fulfillment of the promises of God. He’s a man who knows what it means to live by faith in the middle of God’s redemptive plan. He knows what it means to hold fast to the promises of God, and surrender himself into God’s hands, even when he doesn’t understand the fullness of what God is doing. We can learn a lot from Simeon about what it means to live by faith.
So in this season of Advent, as we celebrate Christmas amidst the groaning of a broken world, let’s lean in and learn from Simeon what it means to walk by faith and entrust ourselves into the hands of God who is with us always and who will never let us go. For we are indeed loved, more than we know!
