Advent Meditations About Waiting

When I was growing up, my brother, sister, and I would find the limits of my parents’ patience.  Each year around Christmas a certain choreography would commence, one that I’m sure was not unique to our family.  We would pepper my parents with questions like, “Mom, Dad, how many more days until Christmas?” “What did you get us for Christmas?” “When will Christmas get here!”  Round and round we’d go in the well-worn steps of the dance.  We’d asked questions, my parents supplied answers, and no one would be happy. 

At some point, my father must have decided he needed to break the cycle and that’s when he invented what I’ll call the “sit-tights” response.  One of us would ask  Dad a question about Christmas, and he would respond to us with something like, “Well Christmas is still several days away.  What you need to do, is to do the sit tights.”  “What’s the sit tights Dad?” He responded, “Well, you sit down, and you pull your knees up to your chest, under your chin,” which we then proceeded to do. “You wrap your arms around your legs, or you sit with your hands under butt,” which we also did.  And then Dad said, “Then you just sit tight…you don’t move and you wait like that until Christmas comes.”  That’s when we’d throw our hands out or up in the air and say exasperatingly, “Daaaadd!?!?”  We’d also chuckle a little, trying not to let Dad see us laugh.

“Do the sit tights,” became our family’s code language for “Be patient, you need to wait a little longer.”  In Revelation 6:10, the saints of God asked Jesus, “How long, O Lord?”  How long before you set things right upon the earth?  How long before you come again?  Jesus responds by giving the martyrs a white robe telling them to sit tight. 

“Rest a little longer, until the number of [your] fellow servants and [your] brothers should be complete”

(Revelation 6:11). 

Jesus doesn’t tell them to sit tight to dismiss them; he reminds them of their purpose in this moment, which is to rest and to trust in Christ.  Christ has a plan, he will accomplish his purposes, and we will be blessed.  But for now, we must sit tight.