Worshiping on Our Tiptoes

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men… looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” – Titus 2:11, 13

Colonial New England homes often featured a distinctive architectural element called a widow’s walk—a railed platform atop the roof where families could scan the horizon for returning ships. Wives, children, and mothers would climb those stairs daily, shading their eyes against the sun, searching the line where sea meets sky for the first glimpse of a familiar sail. The waiting could stretch for months, sometimes years. Yet they kept watching.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that biblical faith keeps us “on tiptoe,” watching for God’s next advent. These passages from Isaiah, the Psalms, Luke, and Titus reveal that Christian worship has always embodied this expectant posture. We are a people who climb the stairs each day, who shade our eyes and search the horizon, because the One we love has promised to return. The blessed hope makes us watchers, and watching shapes how we worship.

Isaiah’s Light Breaking Through Darkness

Isaiah speaks to a people trapped in shadow, yet his words ring with certainty about coming illumination. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” The prophet announces a child whose arrival will shatter oppression like the victory at Midian. This child carries impossible titles—Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The government rests on infant shoulders, and His kingdom knows no end.

Israel’s worship during these centuries of waiting took its shape from this promise. Every sacrifice, every festival, every psalm pointed forward. The widow’s walk of prophetic hope taught God’s people to live as those who already glimpsed the sail on the horizon, even while darkness still pressed close around them.

The Psalmist’s Universal Call

Psalm 96 explodes with imperative energy—sing, bless, proclaim, declare, ascribe, bring, worship! The psalmist calls all families of nations into this expectant celebration because “he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.” The mountains sing, the fields exult, the trees clap their hands. Creation itself joins the watch, and the watching becomes worship.

This psalm bridges Isaiah’s promise and Luke’s fulfillment. It teaches us that worship happens in the tension between “already” and “not yet.” We worship Yahweh who already reigns, yet we call the nations to join us because He comes. The blessed hope turns worship into invitation—come and watch with us, come and see what we’re waiting for.

Luke’s Shepherds Running to Behold

The angels appear to night-shift workers keeping watch over their flocks. “Behold,” the messenger says—look, see, pay attention. The announcement calls the shepherds into motion: “Let’s go to Bethlehem now, and see this thing that has happened.” They run to find what they’ve been shown, and finding it, they become witnesses who spread the word widely.

Even at the moment of fulfillment, the pattern remains. Faith looks, goes, sees, and testifies. The shepherds model worship as responsive movement toward God’s self-revelation. Mary, meanwhile, keeps all these sayings and ponders them in her heart—another form of watching, an interior widow’s walk where she holds the mystery and waits for fuller understanding. The incarnation teaches us that arrival creates fresh expectation.

Titus and the Second Watch

Paul’s letter to Titus reveals that grace’s first appearing trains us for the second. The gospel instructs us to live soberly, righteously, and godly “in this present age”—the time between advents. We occupy the space where fulfillment has begun but completion still waits. Christ gave himself to create “a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.”

The blessed hope transforms how we live today. We’re back on the widow’s walk, but now we know the ship, we’ve met the captain, we’ve tasted the cargo of grace. Our watching has evidence, and this evidence fuels our waiting. We live as Advent people even after Christmas, as Easter people who still say “Maranatha—come, Lord Jesus.”

Living on Tiptoe

What does this mean for you today? It means your daily life can become an act of worship-in-waiting. The way you love your family, engage your work, serve your neighbor—all of it can express the posture of someone standing on tiptoe, watching for the King.

Start your morning by climbing your own widow’s walk. Before you check your phone or dive into demands, pause and remember: Christ has come, Christ will come again, and in the meantime, He walks with you. Let this shape your patience in traffic, your kindness in conflict, your generosity with resources, your hope in suffering. Live like someone who knows the ship is coming.

The blessed hope changes everything because it reframes everything. You’re a watcher, a witness, a herald announcing to others: “I’ve seen the light. Come and see. He’s coming—look!”

Points to Ponder

• What would change in your daily routine if you truly lived as someone expecting Christ’s return at any moment?
• How can your church’s worship better reflect this posture of expectant hope rather than mere nostalgia or present-focused experience?
• Where in your life do you need the patience of the widow’s walk—the ability to keep watching even when the horizon stays empty for a long time?
• Who in your life needs to hear the shepherds’ message: “Come and see what the Lord has made known to us”?

Prayer

Father of lights, you sent your Son as the dawn breaking over our darkness. You’ve placed us in the time between His first advent and His promised return. Teach us to watch well. Give us the prophet’s certainty, the psalmist’s joy, the shepherd’s urgency, and the apostle’s patient endurance. Make our lives a living witness to the blessed hope. Keep us on tiptoe, scanning the horizon, ready to cry out when we see you coming in glory. Through Christ, who appeared in grace and will appear in glory. Amen.

“Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, on David’s throne, and on his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from that time on, even forever.” – Isaiah 9:7