In the first of this year’s traditional Advent letters that most bishops write, Bishop Johan Bonny speaks about waiting. Waiting for our friends or loved ones, but also waiting for God. And about God’s waiting for us.
“Good friends,
“I have been waiting for you!” That short sentence can sound business-like or emotional. It depends on who says it and when. And especially to whom it is being said. “I have been waiting for you!”. It sounds different when a teacher says it to a student who is late for class. Or when an office worker says it to a colleague with whom he takes the morning train to Brussels. Or when a prisoner says it to his girlfriend who comes to visit him every week at the prison. Or when a boy says it to the girl who did not show up for their date. Or when a mother says it to her daughter who returns home from a party in the early hours. Or when a woman says it to her husband who is married more to his work than to her. Or when a man says it to his wife who has been visiting with her friend for too long again. Of when parents say it to their child who is finally coming home after surgery. “I have been waiting for you!” It can convey joy or gratitude or misunderstanding or anger.
“I have been waiting for you!” We do not say it to each other when there is no friendship or love involved. It makes us recognise friends and loved ones: they wait for each other, they consider the other’s presence, they become impatient or distrustful when the other does not show up, the absence of the other at an appointment hurts. When friendship or love cools, waiting for each other disappears. Appointments become more business-like. Waiting becomes less personal and less emotional. Do you want to know who your friends are or who loves you? This question is the test. Who would say to me now, “I have been waiting for you!”?
Soon it will be Advent again in the church community. It is a time of looking forward and waiting in preparation for Christmas. “I have been waiting for you!” Precisely this sentence befits this time in the Church’s year. Remarkably enough, we will often be hearing these words from the mouth of God during Advent: “I have been waiting for you!” The entire Bible speaks of God’s waiting for man. God does not coolly follow humanity from a distance. On the contrary. He is involved, full of friendship and love, with man and the people He has chosen. He desires to be their God and they His people. How often was God not alone in that desire? How often was He not left in the cold? But God continued searching to be close to man. Jesus is the full revelation of that divine search.
At the same time man thirsts for the coming of God. Waiting is a two-way street. But even if a deep desire for God’s friendship and love is alive in man, it is not easy to come close to God. God is so completely different. He is so completely unpredictable. It is not easy to make an appointment or arrange a meeting with Him. He transcends our plans and our agendas. So man, too, is sometimes left alone in his search for God. Someone who loves God must have patience, precisely because it is about God and no one less than Him. Advent is about that patient desire. Patiently looking forward to the coming of Jesus, to be able to say to Him at Christmas, “I have been waiting for you!”
+ Johan Bonny, Bishop of Antwerp”
