On waiting well

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Those of us of a "certain vintage" will well remember a time when the closed season existed not only on rivers, but for all coarse fishing anywhere- lakes, ponds, pits, canals, rivers and streams were all closed to angling from 15th March to the 16th June. (except for in Yorkshire, where for a while they recommenced fishing on the 1st of June in what was know as the "stolen fortnight.")

As a schoolboy I can recall the excitement of the days and weeks leading up to what was commonly referred to as the "glorious sixteenth." For me it eclipsed Christmas in terms of anticipation, and by the last couple of days of the closed season I was barely able to either contain my excitement or to sleep, as thoughts of tench similar to the one held by Christian Angler's member Greg in the photo above danced through my head.

This Sunday sees the church calendar enter the season of Advent, which is similarly a time of waiting, of anticipation and of expectation. In one sense it's about the run-up to Christmas and celebrating Jesus' first entry into the world he'd created, when he was born in that dirty stable in Bethlehem, but the bigger picture (and real meaning) of Advent is about a waiting for,and anticipation of, an event equally certain, but yet to come. In many churches candles are lit on the various Sundays of Advent, each signifying something different and the first candle, which sets the overall tone, symbolises the Second Coming of Jesus, that future day when he will return not as a vulnerable baby in a manger but as a returning, conquering King.

As the angel said to the first disciples "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into Heaven, will come back the same way you have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11)

As we approach Christmas, and the end of a year that's been so messed up, disrupted and marred by the covid-19 virus, there's comfort to be had knowing that God holds the cramped quarters of time within the much bigger context of eternity, and that one day Christ will return and wipe every tear from our eyes, and that even we will reign with him eternally in the New Creation.



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