Christmas Message to all – from Bishop Stuart.

If you think the Christmas rush is getting worse, you are probably right. Pundits suggest there is less peace and less goodwill in our modern cities.

A couple of years ago British Psychology Professor Richard Wiseman and a team of researchers from the British Council secretly timed thousands of pedestrians' speed of walking in major city centres across the globe. Using identical methods as employed in earlier research, they proved that the pace of life is indeed now 10 percent faster than in the early 1990s.

This is bad news for our community. The research also shows that the 'stressed-out' people who live in faster-moving cities have higher rates of heart disease. No surprise there. But what is more fascinating is that they are also less likely to help their fellow citizens. Busy people don't feel like they have the time to stop for others.

As St Paul explains in his letter to the Corinthians, patience and love are entwined.  "Love is patient, love is kind… Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

A culture that despises patience will ultimately chill love for others.

Anglican Bishops are likely to have their patience tried too. Christmas tends to be a rush from one special event to another.

Like many of us who work in modern cities, I have become increasingly reliant on my very smart phone. Sometimes it feels like the constancy of instant messaging is rewiring our brains to become less tolerant of waiting. As emails build and texts flood across those hand-held screens, our culture increasingly teaches us that we must act, we must respond. We see waiting as anything but virtuous. We lose sight of the value of rest. We are told that the only worthwhile moments are those when we are doing something.

Hence the intrinsic value of Advent; a season 'designed' to teach us the discipline of patience, learning how to wait and channel anticipation towards a better goal; the return of Jesus - the completion of time and history as we know it.

We live in a culture that has not merely forgotten how to wait but it no longer realises that there is a deeper virtue in patience. Indeed the hectic weeks towards the end of year are so clogged that Christmas Day itself may arrive like a wearisome anti-climax.

One of the most profound writers on the spiritual importance of waiting is the Dutch-born Catholic priest Henri Nouwen. His understanding of patience came from the relationships he formed with people with profound intellectual disabilities.

In 1985 Nouwen joined the L'Arche community in Trosly, France. At L'Arche, people with and without an intellectual disability had formed a community where they shared their lives together. The community in Trosly is the parent of over 100 similar faith communities across the globe. Nouwen became pastor of a L'Arche community near Toronto, Canada.

He  observed that people who have the sort of profound patience that generates love have received a gift that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This kind of waiting is not the equivalent of baking in a spiritual desert, but living a life full with hope. Holding on to promises that nurture and feed you, and help you bring the light of love into other people's lives.

Says Nouwen: "We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more."

In fact the "Advent" story we see in the Gospels is full of people waiting in a way exactly like this - Mary, her sister Elizabeth, the Three Wise men, Zechariah, Mary, Simeon, Anna. They are all filled with the anticipation that God is about to do great things.

This is why the patience of Advent is critical if we are to enjoy the celebration of Christmas Day. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus; the reconciler - the Christ who puts us right with God. And in this long era after the ascension of Jesus, we are waiting for his coming again in glory.

So for Christians, what should be the true meaning of the "Advent season"? As we wait to throw a party for Jesus, we patiently build a community of love ready to welcome him when he returns.

+Stuart Canberra and Goulburn.

Christmastide 2011.