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There is a sense of hopefulness while we wait.

November 30, 2021

Psalm 72:1-8 | Isaiah 11:1-10 | Luke 10:21-24

I look forward to Advent. Without fail, every year, I am eager for Advent to begin. It might be my favorite time of year. I like the sense of waiting: waiting for the first snowfall, waiting for warm and comforting food, waiting for each of the successive candles to be lit on the Advent wreath, waiting for Christmas Day, and most especially waiting for the coming of the Christ-child.

The reading from Isaiah appointed for today speaks to this sense of waiting. It also looks back, pointing to Jesus’s “roots” –“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  There is a sense of hopefulness while we wait. That “root” will judge with righteousness, equity and faithfulness. The writer goes on by telling us all the good things that will come with this child we are waiting for: wolves living with lambs, leopards with the kid, children placing their hands on an adder’s den with impunity. This is a vision of paradise, heaven on earth that gives hope and comfort. I’m not sure how it will work, but I don’t need to.  I just need to trust and have faith in God.

This Advent, I invite you to dwell on this time of waiting, this time of hopefulness.  Sit with it, let the waiting and the hopefulness and faithfulness go in with your breath and thereby become part of who you are—during Advent and always. As we watch and wait in hope.

Judi Nichols