God Proclaims, We Wait For His Promises

Yesterday, two days in Christian history were marked on the same day. Palm Sunday always heralds in Holy Week but, this year, it was on March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation.

These days hold in my mind the proclamation of what is to come. We see it in the ushering in of Christ as proclaimed heir to David’s throne. We see it in Gabriel’s message to Mary that her Holy Son would sit on the throne of David. It has been proclaimed since the Garden of Eden when God proclaimed that a descendant of Eve would crush the snake. From the beginning, we see patterns of God proclaiming, and then the people waiting for the fulfillment.

This is a tension we all feel. 

Christ’s Kingdom has been proclaimed. We know a world is coming where every tear is dried, but yet, we wipe our cheeks.

But the Bible is full of people who have waited. Abraham was 75 and childless when God promised to make him the father of a great nation. It was decades before that promise came to fruition. David was anointed the King of Israel but it was again, years, years filled with persecution and fleeing for his life, before he sat on the throne. When Christ ascended into Heaven, the angels promised that he’d return again in the same manner. But still, we wait, with eyes fixed on the sky, longing for our Messiah as the sun sets on each day of our waiting.

There is a pattern throughout all of Scripture of God proclaiming His plans and us waiting impatiently for it to come to pass.

Because His timetable is not our timetable.

Our eyes are limited by the finite view of a lifetime.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11, ESV

On this day, throughout this week of proclamations and remembrance, we need to focus on both the proclamation of what God has done and is going to do and the remembrance of the fulfillment of His promises.

When we hold both of these things together, it gives us hope. We see the promises we are waiting anxiously to come to pass but we also see God’s faithfulness.

Our lives are filled with waiting moments. We know what God has proclaimed but it is often not the reality that we feel.

When Mary waited for the birth of her Son, when she realized that she He was missing in Jerusalem, when she watched Him walk the long road to Calvary, did she wonder back on the angel Gabriel’s words? Did she wonder what God was doing?

Because I often wonder what God is doing. And my circumstances aren’t as trying nor  as confusing as hers were.

The Christian life is a life of promises. But sometimes, it feels like a life of waiting on promises.

We are a waiting people. 

But we wait with the hope that is found in a God who has always fulfilled His promises. While we wait on His timing, we can trust that His timing is perfect. We are limited in our view, but He has placed a bigger call, the call to eternity in our hearts.

The promises may not be grasped in this lifetime, but God has assured us through His Spirit that Christ’s work is complete.

“For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes.  For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.  And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us,  and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” – 2 Corinthians 1:19-22, ESV

He is the yes and amen. His work is completed and we are awaiting the ending, but we know that is coming. Because He is faithful. And even when we can’t see how or when, we can trust that if He has proclaimed it, it will come to pass.