Waiting - a musing

Tonight I know two families who are waiting for loved ones to die. Both have been ill a long time, so being released from the physical problems of this world will be a blessing. Both have spouses that will grieve deeply. Both are believers. But Christmas is a strange time of year to face a death.

Christmas comes at the end of fall - the end of long, lighted days. In a way, the time from the summer solstice to the winter solstice is a time of dying. Gradually the days cool, the daylight becomes shorter, and before we know many things like leaves and flowers have died for the season. Even Advent can be a time of dying to ourselves, getting honest with God (again), and surrendering a little more of our will to Jesus. A different type of death.

And yet death is not the end.

Much as on Easter we ask, "Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?" this Christmas these two families can know that the other side of the dying process is LIFE - life lived in heaven with Jesus. And on the other side of the "dying" months, come the "rising" months from the winter solstice to the summer one - and the light gets longer, the temperatures (eventually) rise.

Most importantly, at Christmas we celebrate the end of waiting for the Messiah. The Jews had waited hundreds of years for the coming of the King. They didn't expect a baby in a manger, but God's ways are definitely different than ours. If Advent involves dying to ourselves, Christmas involves CELEBRATING all that GOD is and has done through Jesus for us. In him we have life and have it abundantly. In him we live and move and have our being. In him we can see the way, the truth and the life.

Sometimes we must wait for death. But we know it is never the final end. God is a God of life.

Thank you God for life!

Amen