ニューイングランドの母校からアドベントの便り、その27
2016 Gordon-Conwell
Advent Devotional | Day 28 | The Wait
1 Thessalonians 3:1-13
In the age of instant everything, perhaps the most forgotten virtue is patience. Yet Advent is a good time to remind ourselves that waiting is meant to be the dominant posture of a believer. The faithful waited through long centuries for the first coming of Christ, and Christians have been waiting nearly two millennia so far for his return. But in today’s passage, Paul is so desperate to learn how the young Thessalonian believers are faring spiritually that he simply cannot wait any longer for a report to come. He sends Timothy to check in on them, and he is comforted by the good report that comes back.
This passage reminds us that in Christian life, there is a time for waiting and a time for action. Sometimes we are called to be patient, and at other times we are called to do something, to be the ones through whom God works to answer our own prayers. But even more importantly, this passage reminds us of what is truly worth waiting for. What stirred Paul up so much that he could not stand to wait any longer was not that week’s game or the next episode of his favorite show, but the desire to know that people he loved were standing firm in the Lord.
This Advent season, may we be reminded anew not just that we need patience, but what—or better, whom—we should consider important enough to wait anxiously for.
Dr. Donald Fairbairn
Academic Dean (Charlotte); Robert E. Cooley Professor of Early Christianity
