Isaiah 60:17-22
The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.
Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.
Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.
The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it.
God makes some impressive promises to Israel in Isaiah. Some of the promises were fulfilled when Jesus was born. Thousands of years later, we’re still waiting for some of them. God seems to be interested in waiting. While I waited for my son Zeke to be born, I found myself meditating on waiting. I had questions: How long did God wait from the time he thought up the world before he created it? Was it hard for God to wait for that night Jesus was born? Is it hard for him to wait now, to send Jesus back?
Advent is that season of waiting—waiting for Jesus to come.
I am not good at waiting. I have trouble believing that God is going to provide whatever it is I’m waiting for. If I don’t have hope, I believe I have to make the thing happen that I’m waiting for. Maybe that’s what the pharisees were doing while they were waiting for the Messiah to come. They couldn’t believe that God knew what he was doing with them, so they started making rules to try to bring a better reality into effect. Don’t eat this. Don’t say that. Pray fifteen times a day. Tithe everything you own with mathematical precision—and check it twice. Maybe that’s like what I’m doing when I’m online shopping for things that aren’t in my budget, or fantasizing about things I don’t have space for in my schedule. I’m not hoping in God or believing that he will provide.
Isaiah wraps up all these promises with this one, painful line: I am the Lord, in its time I will hasten it.
Father, may we find hope in your words that you will do what you’ve promised at the right time. Help us to wait with hope, instead of just trying to make our own ideas come true.