Awaiting the Call

The forecast for tomorrow is nasty: lots of snow with accumulation, mixed with freezing rain and ice. It's going to be ugly weather, and the road conditions are supposed to be terrible. So, since this is the south, people started freaking out and canceling things. I don't really object. I could use a day to get caught up on things while wearing my pajamas.

So this evening I sat, waiting for the call. I sat checking websites and watching the news for word about cancellations. Our church policy is to cancel all church activities if the county schools are closed, so I watched carefully to see if our county would cancel. Waiting for news about school cancellations gave me a remarkable sense of deja vu. I remember spending hours next to the radio, waiting for the DJ to go through the list one more time, hoping and praying that the next recitation would bring good news. I'd wait impatiently, and sometimes a friend would call with a rumor that things had been delayed, but you could never count on news unless it had been confirmed.

I imagine this may have been how John the Baptist felt as he awaited news of the Messiah. He desperately wanted the Messiah to come. He'd heard rumors and prepared the way. But he couldn't trust to hope, he couldn't count on the news, until he heard a report back from Jesus himself, by way of his disciples. I can just imagine him sitting in a prison cell praying under his breath, "Please, let this be it. Please, God, let it be what we've hoped for. This just has to be it!" While I don't know the depth of the feeling, I know John must have yearned for news of the Messiah. He probably felt this exhilarating anxiety, but a hundred times more. So he must have been ecstatic when his disciples reported back that Jesus was fulfilling the prophets' promises by making the blind see, making the deaf hear, raising the dead, and proclaiming good news to the poor. Maybe he even jumped up and down whooping the way I used to when I heard that school had been cancelled. Or perhaps he simply sat still while his heart filled with joy and peace at the knowledge that the Emmanuel had come.

Maybe I'll find time to ponder that tomorrow as I'm enjoying my snow day.