"What are you waiting for?” is one of the most common sentences in the English language—perhaps for a reason. Isn’t this the fundamental question of life? What indeed are you waiting for, hoping for, expecting out of life?

ANTICIPATION IS ALWAYS half the fun of getting what we want. When holiday guests are on their way, we sweep through the house, plump up all the pillows, make up the guest room, buy flowers, decorate every window and corner until the environment is dripping with sparkle.

John the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads to forgiveness of sins. People thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the Jordan River into a changed life.

As a treat—and with the help of a Groupon—four friends just out of college rented a limo as a send-off to one in the group who was moving away. They had two hours of luxury: eating hors d’oeuvres, sipping champagne, and feeling like movie stars. Spirits were high as they headed along a main thoroughfare where a summer festival was in full swing. All of a sudden, a pedestrian who was not paying attention walked right into the side of the limo as it cruised by.

Gathered as a community of faith, we cry out to the God who saves us.

On the global scene and the personal one, there may not be much evidence for hope. A voice comes from the most barren place—not the apparently fruitful one—to announce good news.

Ever bump into your parish priest in the supermarket? You may not have recognized him at first because he was “out of uniform” and out of the context of the church. That’s why the gospel takes pains to describe John the Baptist.

Jesus my Lord has come, then. He has smoothed out your rough places and changed your disorderly ways into level paths, making in you an unimpeded road, a road that is absolutely clear, so that God the Father may walk in you and Christ the Lord make his dwelling in you and say: My Father and I will come and make our home in them. —Origen