Thought for the Week - 30 November 2025

Some years ago, I spent Advent in the Manchester Royal Infirmary as a patient. I’d been in hospital since October, by Advent I was recovering from surgery and waiting for test results. Miles from home, barrier-nursed in a side room, uncertain and anxious of what might lie ahead, it was a strange Advent... not the kind with candlelight services and carols, but one of ward life, the smell of disinfectant, and long nights broken only by the soft sounds of nurses’ footsteps.

During those long nights I often played, again and again, Aled Jones singing O come, O come Emmanuel. The words became a lifeline. They filled that sterile little room with hope and comfort, as though the ancient longing of Israel had reached across the centuries and found me there, in Manchester. Something in that haunting melody sustained me... a reminder that even here, in weakness and waiting, Emmanuel... God with us, was near.

And yet, I learned a great deal that Advent about waiting… and about the nearness of Christ in it. I came to recognise the sound of my mother’s footsteps coming down the ward at visiting time, long before I could see her. That sound brought peace before a single word was spoken. I welcomed, more than ever, the simple gift of a hand to hold. the reassurance of another person’s presence, the kindness that speaks without words.

Waiting, I discovered, is not empty time. It is not something to be endured until life begins again. It is, in its own way, holy ground. Time itself can become sacramental… moments filled with grace and presence. Advent invites us to see that time is not just something that passes, but something through which God draws near.

This morning, the violet vestments return. The Gloria falls silent. One candle burns on the Advent wreath. The Church’s rhythm changes… the mood deepens. A holy waiting begins. But Advent is not simply a countdown to Christmas, it is a season of depth, of longing, of quiet anticipation. It reminds us that the most important things in life are not instant but slow-growing… like healing, or forgiveness, or love that matures through time.

Advent dares us to ask… What are we waiting for? We all wait… whether in hospital corridors, in checkout queues, in traffic jams, for phone calls, for letters, for news. We wait for reconciliation after an argument, for the courage to face a diagnosis, for the pain to ease, for love to begin again. We wait with hope, with fear, with endurance. And if we allow it, waiting reveals what truly matters. It strips away the unnecessary and clarifies the heart.

If you’ve ever waited for test results or sat by a hospital bed, you’ll know how time slows down. The minutes seem endless, yet strangely full. You begin to notice details you’d usually miss… the sunlight on the wall, the rhythm of breathing, the kindness of a nurse, the faithfulness of those who visit. Waiting, if we let it, becomes prayer.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Stay awake. Be ready.” I see it not as a harsh command… it’s more like a gentle whisper, “Wake up… it’s time”. Time to live awake to God, alert to grace, open to love. The world around us begins December quite differently. Lights go up quickly, carols fill the supermarkets, and there’s pressure to be festive… as though joy were something we could switch on like fairy lights. But Advent asks something deeper. it asks us to slow down, to notice, to hope in the dark of winter.

I recall someone once saying that Advent is the Church’s gift to a world that has forgotten how to wait. In a culture that prizes speed, productivity, instant gratification, and algorithms, Advent says, wait, be still, God is coming. It’s the rhythm of Mary, treasuring all things in her heart. It’s the faith of Simeon and Anna, waiting with tired but patient eyes for the Consolation of Israel. It’s even the steady rhythm of the little donkey, plodding faithfully on, not fast, not grand, but constant, bearing the hope of the world on his back.

In our readings, Isaiah paints a vision of peace where swords become ploughshares and nations learn war no more. Paul calls us to wake from sleep, for “the night is far gone, the day is near.” And Jesus warns against living forgetfully… not that eating and drinking, marrying and working are wrong, but that we can do them without gratitude, without awareness, without wonder. Advent invites us to recover wonder… to see God breaking through into the ordinary… in the people we love, in the face of a stranger, in bread and wine, in the small mercies of each day.

Our Anglo-Catholic spirituality understands this deeply… that God comes not only in glory, but in the nearness of the everyday, in what seems small and ordinary. Emmanuel, God with us, is not far away in splendour, but close at hand, quietly at work in bread and wine, in time and touch, in the hidden corners of our days. As the Eucharistic Prayer says, “You make all things holy and gather a people to yourself.” At every Eucharist, that promise is renewed… heaven bends toward earth, and the daily things of life are caught up in God’s love.

That is what Advent reveals… that God is already at work in the stillness of our waiting. He senses our need, hears our longing, and draws near with compassion. Like the father who ran to meet his prodigal son while he was still far off, so too God comes to us in Christ. He understands our needs, and makes even our waiting holy.

Advent has inspired some of the richest music in our tradition, O come, O come Emmanuel, that aching cry from exile… and also... Lo, he comes with clouds descending… These aren’t sentimental carols, they are hymns for hearts that know both darkness and hope, that wait for the morning, that believe in light even when it is not yet seen. And so, O come, O come Emmanuel is not only the cry of the ancient prophets, it’s our song too. It is the prayer of the Church, the sigh of the weary, the longing for healing and peace. Wherever you find yourself waiting in the days ahead, whether in hope, in weariness, or simply plodding on like that little donkey… O come, O come Emmanuel can be your prayer too.

God waits with us. When we wait faithfully, compassionately, honestly, we share in the patience of God who longs for his creation to be whole. So, don’t be troubled if you feel unready today, none of us is. That’s why we have Advent… it’s God’s gentle gift to help us begin again. It stirs the soul softly… it rekindles the flame.

Perhaps this week, in the stillness before sleep or in the quiet before dawn, you might whisper…Come, Lord Jesus.

Not as a demand, but as a welcome. Come into the quiet, come into the tiredness, come into the questions, come into our waiting.

O come, O come Emmanuel. Amen