Advent: Hoping & Waiting
Once Thanksgiving ends, Christmas comes alive in our home: trees are put up, lights untangled from storage, stockings hung, and Mariah Carey’s annual resurrection.
But beyond the familiar motions, there’s a deeper rhythm the church has kept for centuries: Advent, a season of intentional waiting on the hope of Christ’s birth.
Waiting and hope. Sounds simple, almost naive; but two things our hearts rarely have room for today. But this Christmas and Advent we are invited to both.
Hope Begins Where We Break
You never notice the cracks of your heart in the moment. A harsh word from your manager, a text left on read, a sharp joke amidst friends you shrug off. How can you? You have been taught to keep going, keep grinding because that’s what we do and that is what has gotten us here.
But there are always moments when the cracks reveal - maybe from seismic events like family fights at reunions, a child that will not arrive, death of loved ones.
And often, these are the moments we double-down in our rush: We buy something. We travel somewhere. We scroll endlessly. We fill the cracks as quickly as we can before the pain says anything too true to ourselves.
But God insists hope is born in the places the heart is broken, places we can’t fix. Not in our competence or our hard work. Not in our achievements or busyness. Hope begins where something in us breaks, because God enters through those cracks.
Look to the birth of Jesus, hope was born not in a palace with servants, but in a run-down shack for donkeys. Luke 2:7 (ESV) And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Christ entered our world through the doorway of poverty, obscurity, and unmet expectation.
Imagine Mary & Joseph’s anxiety as parents bringing this child in these circumstances and yet amidst all that our Savior is born. Even at his birth, Jesus meets us not at our strongest point but the most fragile. And this is the invitation of hope this season.
Advent is Waiting for Hope
This Advent, as we await Christmas, we await for this hope. But waiting can feel like humiliation in this age of rush. It feels like you’ve fallen behind or God is holding out while everyone else has found “it”. But this advent, we see God’s people have always been a people of waiting.
Advent doesn’t begin in the Gospels but rather in the Garden where God promised that a descendant of Eve would crush the serpent (Gen. 3:15), and God’s people became a people who await.
They waited through Egypt’s chains, wandering in the wilderness, exile in Babylon, and four centuries of prophetic silence. Generation after generation held on to God’s word: that a King from David’s line would come (2 Samuel 7), that a Servant would bring light to the nations (Isaiah 42), that a child would be born who would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God (Isaiah 9).
And into that long, collective waiting Christ was born.
Advent invites us to wait with Israel’s hope. To let our aches be known to God and even to ourselves. And if Jesus was born into brokenness, we can trust He has not forgotten ours.
Many of us want to believe that hoping in God comes like a sudden burst of light in a dark room: instant and overwhelming. At times it does. But more often, it comes like dawn: slow and gentle.
I love watching sunrises, but to experience one fully you have to sit in complete darkness first. It’s cold, you’re shivering, and you keep muttering to yourself (or your significant other) that it’ll be worth it.
Then signs of light appear, the sky grows a little brighter, a little bluer. And as you wait wrapped in a jacket or blanket, the sun slowly and quietly rises until its light covers everything in sight. And in that waiting you can see, nothing compares to a sunrise.
Hope works the same way, it doesn’t come all at once, but rather grows. More than a feeling or emotion it’s a posture to stay still and wait with broken hearts. It’s the courage to offer up your broken self to God, in trust that God will work all things together for the good of those who love Him. And this Christmas we remember that God has come and will return.
How to Advent
How can we practically wait and hope during this Advent?
1. Intentionally Wait Each Day
As December begins, carve out time daily (try using our daily Advent devotional) in both Scripture and prayer to center your heart. Let Christmas be more than gifts, decorations, and carols. Let it remind you that we are a people whose Savior has already come. With Jesus’ birth, we’re invited to be honest with God about what we are waiting for and to trust that He has our own good in mind.
2. Be Intentional in Your Everyday Waiting
We’re always waiting, especially in December: DMV renewals, Costco lines, holiday traffic, boiling water for hot cocoa, returning Amazon items at UPS. Normally, we rush through these moments or try to make them disappear. But what if this season, our waiting becomes an invitation? Tiny pockets of silence to remember Jesus. Moments to breathe, to pray, or simply remember that as we celebrate His first coming, we are also people longing for His final return.
3. Celebrate Hope
The birth of Christ is not a moot theological detail; it is reason for genuine joy. Yet Christmas often becomes so crowded with gift-shopping, travel plans, complicated family gatherings - that we forget to actually celebrate. So this Christmas, actually celebrate. Maybe taking a small care-free lunch with friends before an intricate dinner, maybe taking the kids out for a hike in the morning, opening up that nice bottle, not calorie counting for a night. Celebrate the birth of our Savior as a people saved by Him should.
This Advent remember we are a waiting people to be marked by hope, this Advent, you don’t need to rush to save yourself. God is already on His way.
As mentioned earlier, we are also making available a daily Advent devotional thanks to our friends at Citizens LA and Pastor Jason Min. Feel free to use during this season of Advent.