When I was a boy I tried to plant a garden in our yard. I bought a bunch of seeds for things I thought would be good to grow --- strawberries, carrots and pumpkins.

I tilled small plot of dirt, planted the seeds, and waited. I pulled a few weeds each week, and waited some more. I watered the plants each day for a while, and waited some more. After a while I lost interest in my garden. I never saw a strawberry, carrot or pumpkin. In a couple of months is it was overgrown and forgotten.

"Be patient, brothers and sisters," we're told in today's second reading, "until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You too must be patient. Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand."

I'm not a very patient person. I'm not a very good gardener and I certainly wouldn't make a very good farmer. I find it very difficult to wait for something I want.

But we are called to be patient, especially when it comes to the arrival of Jesus Christ into our world. We are told that he is coming. We are called at Advent to be prepared for his arrival at all times. But we don't know when he will arrive. And we don't know how he will arrive.

In today's first reading, we're told that the desert will bloom, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the lame will walk. This is a wonderful vision, but in the meantime we are parched, blind, deaf and lame. It is not easy to wait for the transformation that is promised by the Gospel. It is not easy to remain hopeful that our eyes are able to see, our limbs are strong enough to carry us, any more than it is easy to remain hopeful that an empty piece of dirt can become a garden of plenty.

In today's Gospel reading we are given the picture of John the Baptist in prison, wondering I suspect if he had gotten something terribly wrong in his ministry. After preaching to thousands about the return of the Lord, he is languishing in some hell-hole prison. This is probably not the outcome he had envisioned when he baptized Jesus in the Jordan.

"Are you the one who is to come," John asks Jesus via a messenger, "or should we look for another?"

"Go and tell John what you hear and see," Jesus tells the messenger. "The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear."

It must have thrilled John to hear these words. And so, too, for those of who feel that we are toiling in a barren field, we must remember that this emptiness is not a sign that Jesus has abandoned us. Rather it is a message that we must, for now, continue to wait, and prepare. Continue to do all that is required for our crop to grow, even if we can't see the evidence of growth before us.

If we give up, we risk that our own lives will end up like a neglected garden, chocked and forgotten.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.