The Day After

It is the day after all our guests have left. And the house is quiet now. Much too quiet. Somehow it seems quieter than before they came. Perhaps it is because you do not realize just how much you miss those who are far away until they come home again. And leave again. And you wait again for their return.

But that is how life is. That is how life has always been. At least that is how it has always been for Christians. One priest said that we are a people of waiting. And of hoping. But it seems as if Filipinos were born to wait. And we live to hope. Yes, Filipinos are certainly better at waiting and hoping than most people. We seem to be forever waiting for the economy to better itself, for migrants to come home, for politics to change, for children to grow up, for our nation to prosper the way it used to.

And I am reminded of all those times in the bible when the people of God would wait for deliverance. Abraham waited with longing for a child. Jacob waited fourteen years before marrying his betrothed. Noah waited for the rain to stop. The Israelites waited to be delivered out of Egypt. And then, they waited for the Savior. And then He came.

But we continue to wait for His return. Yes, the setting has changed, the language has been replaced but like the Israelites who were delivered out of Egypt only to be left wandering in the desert for forty years, we continue to wait. And that is what we do exceptionally well at Christmas. We wait and we hope.

Christmas is its own special kind of waiting. We re-enact the birth of the Christ Child who came down from heaven to free us from the bondage of sin. And yet, even as we prepare to receive him spiritually we are never completely filled. Christmas comes and we are happy but at the back of our minds, we feel as though something is still missing. Something is not quite right. That what we have waited for all this time is still just out of reach. Perhaps this is merely the drastic drop in blood sugar after all the sweets we consumed. Or perhaps this is the anticlimax, the law of diminishing returns at work. The more we have of what we crave, the less satisfaction we draw after that first taste.

And yet, and yet and yet, I know that it is not. Because the day after Christmas is its own kind of waiting too. At Christmas, I receive with joy, the gift of my Savior. But even as I receive Him in my heart, I know that His presence is not something that I can hold on to and chain to my side. I receive Him and know that I must let Him go again. Not because He abandons me but because I am still limited by human sight. 

On the day after Christmas, when He “leaves,” my heart is quiet. Much too quiet. Quieter than before He came.  Maybe it is because I do not really realize how much I miss Him until He comes home. And leaves again. And I wait for His return again. The Child has come into the house, but now I must wait for the return of the King.

I belong to a people of waiting. I belong to a people of hoping. I belong to a people of Christmas. And I belong to a people of all the days after Christmas.