Yet the scriptures whisper softly, but ever so strongly, to us to lift our eyes to the skies, place our noses right up against those windowpanes and look for the coming of the Lord who has graciously offered to you adoption into His family.
Expectation. It penetrates the moments surrounding us during this time of year. Often, we look forward to the holidays for a myriad of reasons - the lights, the ambience of the season, the special traditional foods that are prepared only one time per year, as well as, the joy of possibly having family and friends around to help celebrate.
Expectation. For me, now being a mother of adult children and living on a different continent than her children and her parents - the holidays often bring me to a heightened state of expectation and excitement. The days I’ve waited for in which I could literally look my children in the eye and physically hug them are coming ever so close. There’s SO much to prepare for. The rooms have to be made ready so that when they arrive they will feel welcomed home again - clean air-dried sheets, brightly mopped floors, and the removal of all the clutter that has seemed to accumulate since their leaving last. The finishing touches will involve placing in each room a small bowl of Spanish/French clementines which help quench any lingering airplane food issues.
Expectation. Our world markets and feeds on our hunger for this anticipation of the coming holidays. The infamous U.S.-based "Black Friday" has now come to France in full force - making it now "Black Friday Week" as we continue to prepare for the coming days. Yet I wonder if we stopped and thought a bit, if we as the Bride of Christ have the same or hopefully even an exorbitant greater expectation for the coming of our Lord and King, Jesus Christ? Do we daily anticipate His arrival as we prepare our hearts and lives spiritually? Are we “making ready” our lives for His imminent return? Are our hearts expectant as we think of our rejoicing at seeing Him soon?
I’ve written before about the image of young children and how so often they will place their little noses and dirty fingers right on the windowpanes in anticipation of the arrival of family or friends. So often we as mothers will scold and chide them, as we see only the work involved in cleaning those dirty windows again. But… what if, what if we as the Bride of Christ, all over the world, young, old, rich, poor, people from every tribe and nation …what would it look like if we would become a people who were not afraid to place our noses right up to windowpanes in anticipation of the soon arrival of our Lord and King? After reading again the story of the priest Zechariah found in Luke 1, I’ve been struck by the thought that after he was able to speak again after 9 long months of silence, who in the world was going to stop Zechariah from declaring the coming of the Lord? Who? I am sure that he spoke passionately about Christ’s imminent first coming until the day of his own death.
The day is coming soon when I will be able to place my arms around those people whom I love so much and have been preparing to see again since the days I saw them last. To be honest, I don’t care much how silly I might look in that expression of anticipation… because I will see some of my family soon.
My encouragement to the Bride of Christ around the world is that we remain counter-cultural in our view of the coming events. The world woos us to remain focused on the glitz and glamour and the allusion of the season. Yet the scriptures whisper softly, but ever so strongly, to us to lift our eyes to the skies, place our noses right up against those windowpanes and look for the coming of the Lord who has graciously offered to you adoption into His family.
My desire and deep longing is to remain at the window - ready for His arrival. There are days when I falter, but I believe that’s where the Body of Christ comes in to surround one other and to help keep each other focused in our waiting.
There’s plenty of window space next to me… and my prayer is that we may globally make a mess of those windows as we firmly expect and anticipate our Lord’s imminent return. See you at the window!
