WAITING

Advent is the season where Christians are waiting for Christmas, we are waiting for the appearance of Christ. I know we are waiting for the second Advent, the return of Christ at the end of the age, but what if He is among us and coming to us on a daily basis? Jesus said as much when He said that when we fed the hungry we were feeding Him, or if we visited a prisoner we were visiting Him. If we have eyes to see, He comes to us every day in the hurting people that are part of all of our lives. He is there when our friends are in the hospital, He is there when someone we know is in jail, He is there when someone loses a family member in death. Jesus said when we show love to those who are hurting we are showing love to Him. Here is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes this coming of Christ.

“Jesus stands at the door knocking. In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us. Do you want to close the door or open it? It may strike us as strange to see Christ in such a near face, but he said it, and those who withdraw from the serious reality of the Advent message cannot talk of the coming of Christ in their heart, either.”

All of us fail to see Him in these arenas getting caught up in all of the important activities that crowd our lives. Maybe this Christmas season we can ask the Lord to open our eyes that we can see Him when He comes to us in these ways as we also wait for His soon Second Coming. When He does open our eyes then we must open our hearts to pour out His love on these hurting precious people. Maybe this is what Advent is about after all. Frank Bailey