The picture of an excited child who can’t wait for Christmas Day to arrive is a familiar one. Yet we shouldn’t be surprised if it strikes some familiar chords of Advent -- something good is about to happen: there is excitement, anticipation, hope and the inevitability of waiting.

And waiting is sometimes the hardest thing to do.

Yet a child’s eagerness for the great day to arrive is more than matched by the impatience of adults in our Western world in our need for immediacy in just about everything. And we don’t have to look far for other useful metaphors of waiting.

The bare landscape and short winter days of December lend themselves particularly to the mood of this season:- the frozen land waiting silently, and in the darkness for the winter equinox -- another milestone as it awaits the warmth of the sun to burst open its iron prison.

In their time the OT prophets waited for the Day of the Lord, and they fed their longing with hope, using powerful images and memorable pictures. Flowers would blossom in the desert. Hills would be made low and valleys raised up. It would be a time of peace and security. People would turn swords into ploughs and the lion and the lamb would lie down together.

Most profoundly we sense the quality in waiting displayed by Mary, the mother of our Lord. Mary is a key figure of Advent and perfectly sums up the stature of her patient and quiet receptivity. Here in her waiting, hope is nourished. Mary waits for the birth of the Christ-child -- nine months’ gestation (like every prospective mother) -- waiting for the promise to be made real in her, waiting to be changed.

For us Mary discloses the deepest dimension of the glory of God as she waits in exposure and vulnerability.

Christmas will come soon enough. Yet the church has wisely set aside a season where we learn the value of taking time out for reflection, to think about the patience of God, and God’s stubborn refusal to abandon us, despite our bad behaviour.

Waiting has its own value and dignity. And Advent is the invitation to wait hopefully for what is to come, ready to be changed.