Rev. John Claypool once commented that there are two kinds of things in the world. There are the things you have to work for, and there are the things you have to wait for. He has a point, doesn’t he?
And some of the most important things are the things we have to wait for. Yet, most of us would rather work than wait. Waiting makes us feel ineffectual, idle, and passive. But there are dozens of scripture references to waiting and its significance. “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” “Those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the earth.” “Wait on the Lord, be courageous and he shall strengthen thy heart.” And on and on. We are so often in a hurry, but apparently God is not.
We once heard Dr. Jonathan Morgan tell the story of receiving a middle of the night phone call from his son-in-law explaining that his wife (Morgan’s daughter) was in labor and headed to the hospital. This would be Morgan’s first grandchild. In great excitement, he got up and dressed and drove to the hospital in record time. He went straight to the birthing room, gave his daughter a kiss and a word of encouragement, and then stepped outside the room to wait. The nurse suggested pointedly that there was a waiting room just down the hall which was a perfectly comfortable place. But Morgan didn’t want to be that far away. And so with assurances to the nurse that he would stay out of the way, he spent the next six hours near the door, waiting. Every so often he heard a cry from that room, and he recognized his daughter’s voice as she struggled to manage the painful contractions. He remained steadfastly beside the door, unable to offer help or to do anything useful. Then, he said, everything became quiet for a moment, and from the utter silence he heard another cry. This was a cry he had never heard before. His grandson was born.
When Dr. Morgan reflected upon that moment, he said the cry of new life made up for the stiff back, the sleepless night, and the anxiety. None of it mattered when he heard that cry. And to this day, Morgan went on, when he feels discouraged or frustrated, the memory of the cry of his grandson at his birth is like a hymn of reassurance, full of hope and possibility. The cry changed everything. The cry was worth the wait
We all wait, don’t we – whether we wait for a relationship to be restored, or a health issue or a financial problem to be resolved, or a loss to be overcome, or some significant answer to be made known? We all wait. We all long to hear something that will assure us, offering us possibility and fresh hope.
For Christians the birth of the Messiah at Christmastime is like a cry of new life in a dark night. It is what has been fervently longed for and dreamed of. Listen for the stillness this Christmas Eve. You may hear the world groaning in anticipation of new beginnings, and you may just hear the cry of God’s spirit freshly born to be among us and change everything. There are things we can work for in life, and things we must wait for – and often the most important must be waited for.
