To watch and to wait

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Francis Gonsalves [1]

Late for college, a professor hopped into a taxi and instructed the driver to drive fast. Later, unsure whether he’d told the driver his destination, he inquired: “Do you know where we’re going?” “No!” retorted the driver, “but, as instructed, I’m going very fast!” Most of us are not sure where we’re going although we’re moving very, very fast.

Thus, come December, during the four-week run-up to Christmas that commemorates the birth of Jesus, Christians take “time out” for spiritual preparation termed “Advent”.
Advent stems from the Latin adventus, meaning, arrival. God comes in his son, Jesus. And God’s arrival requires one to do two things: watch and wait. Therefore, in the dusk of December we’re told to apply brakes to our dashing around at breakneck speed. Amidst the desert of our frenetic lives, Advent is an oasis that bids us: Stop!
Today, when productivity and profit-making are passwords, nobody has time to wait and to watch. To watch means to attune one’s senses to the whole of reality. One watches through the windows of the senses — sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches. One watches with the mind, too. To wait, however, is more an integrative, inner attitude. One waits with one’s body; more specifically, with one’s heart and spirit. The mind may help. Most often, it doesn’t. Sometimes, the mind resists waiting, for its reasoning often opposes the logic of the heart.
The distinction between watching and waiting is tenuous, yet tenable. Watching precedes waiting. Watching is preparation for prayer, waiting is hope after prayer. To watch is to be alert and active; to wait is to be alive and awake. In the first week of Advent, Jesus says: “Stay awake, for you do not know the day when your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).
To effectively watch, one must be intelligent to gauge all that happens in our world, today. Thereafter, to wait is to surrender to the unintelligible. Watching involves activity; waiting implies receptivity. Watching without waiting is aimless activity; waiting without watching is blind faith. However, having watched and weighed, one must do something. In the second week of Advent, John the Baptist, Jesus’ precursor, calls for inner transformation: “Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight” (Matthew 3:3).
True bhaktas are watchful and do not hoist conditions upon God. They are patient in religious practice, never expecting quick-fix solutions. A scripture text of Advent’s third week reads: “Be patient! Think of a farmer, how patiently he waits for the precious fruits of the ground after it rains” (James 5:7). Farmers understand the importance of faithful waiting. To wait is to hope that what one sows will sprout and who one expects will arrive. When? How? One knows not. God knows. Waiting is an act of faith.
The fourth week of Advent focuses on Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ parents, models of watching and waiting. Joseph, Jesus’ foster-father, is a man of few words; indeed, the Bible records none of his words. But, if he did say something, it was “yes!” to God’s plans. Likewise, Mary embodies maternal watching and virginal waiting for God’s plans to unfold in her life. Surprised by, yet surrendering to, the ebb and flow of life, Mary watches God’s work as she “ponders these things in her heart” (Luke 2:19,51).
During Advent, people light a candle in an “Advent wreath” for each Sunday of the season. The four candles symbolise one’s preparedness to welcome God when he comes. “God comes, comes, ever comes”, writes Tagore, the poet-mystic who heard God in the symphony of sparrows and touched God upon soil sanctified by the tiller’s toil. Likewise, it’s up to you and me to see-hear-smell-taste-touch God in nature, in other people, and in the warp and woof of human history. This means we must watch and wait for God’s coming with silence, prayer and works of love.
Advent celebrates two arrivals: Jesus’ birth 2000 years ago; and Jesus’ “second coming” when Christians believe that all of creation will be united with God in unending and unalloyed bliss. Till then, let us watch. And wait. Remember, “The Lord is good to those who wait for him. It is good that one waits quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:25).

— Francis Gonsalves is the principal of the Vidyajyoti College of Theology, Delhi. He is involved in interfaith dialogue and peoples’ initiatives for
fostering justice, harmony and peace. He can be contacted at fragons@gmail.com [2]