Waiting . . . we’ve all done it… and we each wait for something or someone almost every day of our lives… and we will continue to wait. Waiting tries our patience, it makes us anxious, it frustrates us and, anyway, why doesn’t that person if front of us hurry up anyway. We can use our time usefully while waiting, see it as nuisance or a time to worry about the end.

A lot of our waiting happens in line-ups. Recently,

went to London, England. I waited in lines for everything. When I went to get my passport I waited in line to be told which line to wait in, then I waited in that line to show that I had the right documentation and finally I waited in line to see the person who would send it all off to be processed. The airport has “the line-up” down to a fine art. You line up to check your baggage, you line up to get into passport control, you line up in the passport control line, you line up to get on to the plane and that, you think, is the last line, but it isn’t.

When you have checked through the ticket agent at the gate and you think you’ve finally made it, you round the corner to the ramp only to find to see a line with everyone who went before you stretching far into the distance.When I got to England, it was great because there were no lines, there were cues.

The first Sunday of Advent (November 27) began a season of expectation, a season where we focus on waiting. There is an art to waiting and we can put that time to good use.

Some call it “watchful living” or “useful waiting”. When I’m waiting sometimes I’ll read a book, or I’ll work on a sermon in my head and sometimes I’ll get to talking to someone.

Jesus uses the words in the Gospel reading on the first Sunday of Advent (Mark 13: 2 4 3 7 ) , “Beware, keep alert” and later, “Watch”.

Wa t ch ful living has less to do with s p e c u l a tion about the end of the world – we’ve had plenty of that and there will be plenty to come – and more to do with carrying out our ministry, as Mark illustrates it, in a way that finally makes the date of the end a matter of irrelevance. Readiness has as much to do with being ready for life as it has to do with its end. It is a time to use our gifts: our time, treasure and talents.

The Bishop of Niagara, Bishop Ralph Spence, announced that Bishop Ann Tottenham has agreed to be the Assistant Bishop of the Diocese. Bishop Ann will help with confirmations and Sunday preaching and special services of dedications. She said that there was one thing she won’t do having retired and come back part-time: she doesn’t “do meetings”.

Bishop Ann brings many gifts and talents to the church. All of us bring our individual gifts and we stronger as one body. As the Bishop said in his message to Synod: “Few of us can survive on our own. We need one another and we are stronger together; Jesus called 12 not 1”.

The fact that we w a i t together, as Bishops, clergy and laity is made easier through being a member of the church, the body of Christ, than it is waiting alone.

The Bishop’s vision for diocese is seen through a 3 legged stool: Evangelism – reaching out, Leadership in the Laity and the Clergy and Stewardship, using our time, treasure and talent which will all lead, he believes, to continued growth in the life of the diocese as we minister together.

Advent is a time of expectation, a time of waiting, a time to do the work of ministry given to all of us, not just waiting for the end. Jesus’ last words become our first words in the Church’s new year at the beginning of the Season of Advent.

It is a call to be awake to what is happening in our world and to be looking for, and in tune with, the one who came in the celebration of the Birth of Christ, in his coming again or in our lives now. Mark’s point is that they are the same.

Amen.