The Waiting Season

Christmas Time is Here. Almost. ‘Tis the season of waiting.

I play a 1963 Silvertone guitar. I remember seeing the online listing. I debated back and forth. I worked the budget. I wondered how wise it was to order a fragile old guitar from Vancouver Island in the mail.

The original owner of my Silvertone likely waited for the mail to arrive, too. Silvertones were sold through the Sears catalog. That wonder-book-of-waiting. That Amazon of old.

There’s a synchronicity in playing Christmas music on my Silvertone – something I’ve done a lot of this year. My waiting guitar singing waiting songs.

Christmas is the season of waiting. Waiting to open gifts. Shaking boxes and for peeling back corners. Not that I would ever do that. I love the surprise. I love the value added by waiting.

Some of us are waiting to see family we haven’t seen for months. Some are waiting for airplanes to land and slow drives on snowy roads.

Some of us are waiting in the dark for the lights to come on. Waiting for healing for our our bodies and hearts. Waiting for our loved one to be free from cancer. Waiting to regain our strength. Waiting for the day when when our first thought is not of how much we miss them.

The Nativity story is full of waiting. An entire nation of captives waiting to be freed from Roman rule. Mary, a fourteen year old girl, wondering how she’ll tell Joseph that she’s pregnant, and the baby is not his. It’s God’s. Waiting to break that news. Waiting, together, through pregnancy. Waiting to reach their homeland through a difficult desert journey for a census that was required no matter how pregnant you were. Waiting as refugees.

Waiting to see just what kind of child was about to born. Can you imagine the terror and the mystery of that, mingled with the hope?

We are still waiting, thousands of years removed from that little baby Jesus. Waiting day by day with our advent calendars and candles. Waiting in the tangle of darkness and light.

What are you waiting for this Christmas?