Remember when you were a child, how little understanding you had of how things happened, if they would happen or when they would happen? When you were waiting for something you wanted, like Christmas for example, excited anticipation fused with a vague sense of time to make waiting a consuming reality: When will it be? How long is that? Is that soon? As a child, you get used to waiting. I recall thinking that when I was an adult, I would have the knowledge and power to make things happen or at least to understand when things would happen. I would no longer have to wait; I would be in control.

What I came to realize as an adult is that the power I thought I would acquire when I grew up, and in many ways did acquire, is either a fantasy or a false power. Things, let alone people, do not do what you want them to do or jump at your command, as in childhood you hoped they would.

When I was a child, I viewed the power of my parents as rock solid, and probably never-ending; but as they are now in their late 80s, I see that like the rest of us, they are just two people whose power was fleeting—over me, but even over themselves. None of us have real power, not power that will last; what we have is a simulacrum that will fade, as will our strength of mind and body.

How does our fading, limited power connect to the waiting of Advent? Waiting is often experienced as a lack of control or power. As I have aged, though, waiting seems like a luxury that the rush of busyness denies me. Time moves so quickly and the joy of anticipation is too costly. As adults we are caught up in what must be done now, what needs to happen now and the sense that we have no time. We cannot wait for anything, let alone God.

Time destroys all human power and it is in the waiting for God that we grasp true power. This is the power, Isaiah says, that “will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.” But what God’s power brings is salvation. Once God’s power arrives, Isaiah says, “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

When John the Baptist’s disciples were seeking a sign of Jesus’ messiahship, Jesus did not list for them his virginal conception or his Davidic lineage. He spoke of deeds that indicated that God’s power had broken in to our world in a new way. He instructed John’s disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Isaiah’s prophecies, awaited for so long, were coming to fulfilment.

For us now, awaiting Jesus’ adventus yearly and finally, Jesus’ brother James instructs us: “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

It would be wise for us in our daily lives to reconsider the role of anticipation and waiting, of letting our powers be exchanged for those of God, who will take our weaknesses and in the fullness of time make us whole again.

This is not an argument for indifference, ennui, idleness or the meaninglessness of life; this is an argument for the sheer joy of living life in anticipation of all the good things that God has in store for us and using our weaknesses, strengths, gifts and love to work on preparing ourselves for the arrival of the King. Waiting in joyful anticipation is a luxury that we can all afford.

In Isaiah’s vision, the exiles, those people who most often spend their time in waiting, “shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Wait for it, like a child at the window anticipating Christmas.

This article appears in December 9-16 2013.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.