The Everlasting One Will Come Again

In a house full of boys, few things unfold sweetly. 

To be sure, momma tries. I meticulously fill the tiny boxes of our Advent calendar with vintage candy before placing it in its annual place of honor on the shelf in our living room. I stack the paper ornaments that feature a daily verse about Jesus next to the tiny tree where we hang one each day of Advent. I set the table with four long, tapered candles, one to light each Sunday of the season of anticipation. 

But then…things get real. 

My four little boys inevitably begin their month-long argument about whose turn it is to do what. Life gets busy, and we miss a day here, two there. Somebody didn’t get as much candy as someone else. One brother yells at another that he’s reading too slowly, another weaponizes his ornament to bop his brother on the head. 

In my experience, Advent is rarely bathed in soft candlelight or wrapped in warm fuzzies. Waiting is hard, and little boys aren’t the only ones prone to fumble their way through this season of sacred expectation. 

It’s hard to stay focused on Jesus for the twenty-some days before Christmas morning. There are so many other things to do, so many shining but shallow objects vying for our affections. But isn’t this season just rehearsal for a more significant wait? Advent doesn’t stop with the at-long-last arrival of Christmas morning. Every day marked off on our calendar moves us one day closer to the second Advent—that glorious day when Jesus finally and forever returns. As much as we long for that day and join with creation in groaning for it, we’re also easily distracted from it, prone to focus on the insignificant instead of the hope of Immanuel, God again with us. 

Of course we’re not the first followers of Jesus to wait with fidgety hearts. There’s a doubting Thomas in each of us, prone to say, “We don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5). 

Yet whether it seems like it or not, this wait won’t last forever. Our promise-keeping Savior will surely keep His word.

“If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.” 
—John 14:3

So do what you have to do to help your heart remember. Fill the boxes. Light the candles. String the tree. In the middle of the mess, keep waiting. When your heart grows faint, press on. Keep gathering your little ones close and keep counting past Christmas morning because when it comes to Jesus, the best is always yet to come. 

He who testifies about these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! 
—Revelation 22:20