Advent Day Seventeen

Genesis 17:1-8

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.  Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.’

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.  No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.  I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.  I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

God made a promise to Abraham, and he did not say in what time or at what moment that promise would be fulfilled.  As humans, we always want to know how things will be, who will win the coming Super Bowl game, and who will be the nation’s president.  When young, we wonder who we will marry or how many children we will have.  The truth is that we want a false sense of control in our lives.  In the case of Abraham, it took 25 years of waiting before starting to see the fulfillment of God’s promise that Abraham would have his own son and would become the father of many nations.

The big problem we have in the times we are living is that we want everything “express” – happening quickly, without any waiting.  A little over 1000 years passed between the time of Abraham and that of the prophet Isaiah, who received this prophecy foreshadowing the birth of the Messiah: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).  Then another 700 years passed from the time of Isaiah until the birth of Jesus.  Imagine that wait! 

Why did it have to take so long?  Does God take pleasure in the discomfort of our waiting?  No, God’s plan was not about the waiting itself, but about the faith and hope which such waiting would allow to develop in us.  In God’s plan, we can enjoy all the wonders that God created for us, and can bear witness to the transformation we experience in our lives as we receiving Him and walk with Him.

In this time of Advent, we celebrate the coming of our Lord and Savior, when the God in whom we believe became a child who would give light to a world lost in darkness.  His sacrificial death and resurrection would give us faith, hope, and eternal life.  To this child who changed the world, including all of history – to that child we give all honor and glory, and we proclaim that it was worth the wait.  This Christmas, I invite you to sing with the angels at Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to mankind!”