And I will wait now (website only)

And I will wait now,
and in the waiting
feel still more closely
your love for me.
For I’ll be patient
and I’ll be gentle,
touched by your steadfast
humility.

And I will hope now,
and in the hoping
make every action
a gift for you.
For I’ll seek justice
and I’ll love mercy,
each word I speak an
echo of you.

And I will go now,
and in the going
follow your Christ light
so I will see
how I may find you,
holy and human,
your arms stretched open
waiting for me.

Words: © 2013 Laurence Wareing

Metre: 55.54.D

Suggested tune: "Ollie's Pause" was written for this hymn. Download as a PDF. Alternatively, "Bunessan" (StF 125) is suitable.

More information

This song was written during Advent 2012 in response to thoughts of Dietrich Bonhoeffer included in God is in the Manger: reflections on Advent and Christmas (2010: Westminster John Knox). "Celebrating Advent means being able to wait," Bonhoeffer writes. "Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten." Around 70 years on, we often hear the same complaint.

Bonhoeffer himself was a German theologian who found himself in conflict with the Nazi regime. A "political prisoner" during the Second World War, he was executed just ten days before German forces began to surrender in 1945. The editors of God is in the Manger write: "For Bonhoeffer, waiting - one of the central themes of the Advent experience - was a fact of life during the war: waiting to be released from prison; waiting to be able to spend more than an hour a month in the company of his young fiancée; waiting for the end of the war."

Verse 2 quotes the prophet Micah (chapter 6, verse 8). The final verse links the image of the baby Jesus with outstretched arms and that of Christ being crucified.