Expectations are powerful. We long to trust possessions, people and ideas with our hope – hope of something greater than what we currently have. Relationships, careers and entertainment willingly receive our expectations. To the degree that we think each will deliver, anticipation grows inside of us. The voice of childhood may change tone through the years, but the same gut response comes with every disappointment:

“But you promised…”

It might not be said so plainly, but our confidence shifts as the desired object escapes our fingertips. Impatience replaces anticipation. Unrest and discontentment rise up to our defenses, while our greatest need seems too simple – perspective.

God makes promises to His people throughout the Old Testament.

• A rainbow appears as a promise that the flood was a one-time deal.
• God promises deliverance and spares an entire generation of Israel during Passover and with it preserves the joy of each father in holding his firstborn son.
• David sleeps on cave floors, hunted by Saul, and God delivers him.

Our Father is a promise-making and promise-keeping God.

There are also those who longed for the fulfillment of promises yet could only cling to the promises themselves. For days, weeks, months and years, these people waited. Genesis speaks of Abraham and Sarah who, with Abraham in his 80s, had no child. Their hopes and expectations belong to any would-be parent: a sign of the future, the joy of parenting, but the next generation absent. Along with Abraham and Sarah, the people of Israel knew a collective experience of waiting. God promised a Messiah, a Deliverer, an anointed King. Days turned into months and seasons into years. God’s people often waited and trusted with patience and hope.

We often create our own expectations. What we want or think we deserve leaves us discontent, disillusioned, even resentful when it does not come. These feelings live in deep and powerful places within our souls and can begin to define us.

None of us escape this pain, this fear that if we love something enough God will take it away from us, as if He is vengeful and plays games with His children. We trust the object of our expectations and set our expectations too low when they were meant to be occupied by Him, after all. What good thing would the Father withhold from us if He has given us His only Son? What more could capture our hearts than the Savior Himself and the knowledge that He died bound that we might live free?

Decades of wanting, years of promise, fitless starts and stops of patience – Abraham’s faith finds no greater description than where we read of father and son walking down the mountain together, leaving behind an altar that bears the name,“The Lord will provide.”

There is no more powerful expectation than patience in the promises of God, for He has provided the Lamb, and the Lamb is the coming King.

This is hope…

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 PETER 1:8–13

Toward the end of the fourth century, the churches of the Western Roman Empire settled on December 25 as the date for God’s people to mark the birth of Christ. They also instituted Advent as a season of preparation leading up to the celebration of Christmas. Just as the fasting and humility of Lent precedes the celebration of Easter, the anticipation of Advent precedes the joy of Christmas Day.  The Advent season officially commences on the fourth Sunday (Advent Sunday) before Christmas and continues until Christmas Eve or Day. Various theological traditions celebrate the season through an array of customs.

Perhaps there is no more popular tradition associated with the season is the use of an Advent calendar to mark the month of December. Modern Advent calendars typically include 24 “windows” that are opened (one per day) to reveal a poem, portion of Scripture, story, picture or small gift. As more windows are opened, expectancy increases in awaiting the final day, which represents the first advent of Christ.

Another popular tradition involves the use of an Advent candle or candles. This symbolic tradition is borrowed from the emphasis throughout Scripture of Jesus Christ being the light of the world (Matthew 4:16; John 1:4-9, 8:12). Those using one candle burn a little each day to mark the progression of the season. Each day a bit more of the candle is burned to symbolize the anticipation of Christmas. Others use a wreath with five candles in the middle. Each week a new candle is lit in anticipation of the final lighting on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Ultimately, the King is coming. Jesus Christ has come and will come again. This is the hope of the Church whom He purchased with His blood. It is the eager expectation and desire of His people. In His coming is our joy, for He is our treasure, our greatest good.