Wait for it!
A Sermon preached at St. Luke's Church
by The Rev. Anne E. Hodges-Copple
 on the Second Sunday of Advent, 04 December 2005
All kinds of waiting rooms
    Think about the various kinds of waiting rooms you have experienced.  Think about waiting for your tires to be rotated, oil changed, transmission tuned. Those waiting rooms all seem to have the furniture no one else wanted and the smell of stale smoke from twenty years ago.
     Or think about the waiting rooms for public services like the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the Socials Security Administration or the school guidance counselor. These waiting areas may not make you want to take a bath, but you usually can’t wait to get out of them.
    Then there are those waiting rooms for an important interview for a job or loan; the waiting rooms of bankers and lawyers and college admissions counselors; waiting rooms where furniture of gleaming mahogany and rich fabrics smell of success.
    Of course most of us are best acquainted with medical waiting rooms. When waiting for the dentist or the eye doctor, or other routine check ups, you pick up magazines you secretly long for but can’t justify subscribing to. It is actually kind of nice to sit back for a moment and have a breather. Too often, however, are those medical appointments where we sit waiting in some measure of concern. We’ve been called back for more tests. The doctor wants to explain some results he didn’t want to give over the phone. Decisions need to be made about a new treatment strategy. Or maybe it is the Intensive Care Unit waiting room, where we sit in a helpless limbo.

Seasons of Waiting       
    There are waiting rooms, of a more metaphorical type.  Think about people who live in exile from their home country. Think about people who wait and wonder when, if ever, it will be safe to return to their homes or move on with their lives. Some countries serve as waiting rooms for other countries as where one group of  people are desperate to immigrate out of a terrible economic circumstances while others  long to return to a home they were forced to abandon.
    You might think about sixth century B.C.  Babylon as a kind of waiting room for the Jews.  For two hundred years the people of Jerusalem, (which is really a poetic term for all of the Kingdom of Judah) lived in exile as servants of the rulers of Babylon; waiting for God to allow them to return to Israel. Centuries before, the prophet Isaiah had tried to warn the king, the priests and the people of Judah that they were about to be carried away into captivity because of their disobedience. But now, as described in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, by a prophet writing in the name of Isaiah, centuries later, the period of punishment is about to come to an end. The time of waiting for release is at an end: the time for return and rejoicing is about to begin. Though generations  - generations lived their lives in faithful waiting, now a new generation will watch and follow as God leads them straightaway back to Israel.
    Then fast forward almost five centuries to Israel/Palestine in the first century of the Common Era as a kind of waiting room. When John the Baptist began his preaching in the Judean wilderness, just a few miles from Jerusalem, the Jews were once again waiting for God to act. They were being held prisoners in their own country by the Roman occupation. They waited for the Messiah to come and restore once and for all, the fortunes of Zion. They waited for a leader who would throw out the bums, form a new government, and usher in a new era where their God would once again show himself to be an awesome God, not a silent or absent or passive God. They waited for the Son of David to bring Israel back as a powerful kingdom, feared and respected by other empires.  John the Baptist, Andrew and his brother Peter, James and John did not know when or where or how, but they knew they had a sacred obligation to listen, to watch, to wait and to be ready.
     And even now, we the offspring of the Jews and the heirs of hope, we are a people who wait.  We the disciples of Jesus Christ await his Second Coming; his return to earth in indescribable glory. Since Jesus’ ascension into heaven and promise to return to earth in great glory, we are the ones who wait. We have become resident aliens of sorts. This life is a waiting room of sorts.  We are given this time on earth, but only as a precursor, foretaste, of the world to come. We are given a particular family of origin and nationality by birth which temporarily defines and profoundly shapes our earthly identity. If we take scripture seriously, however, while in this world, we are primarily a people who wait. But that’s very strange, isn’t it?  Maybe the people in the Bible are good at waiting. Maybe people in other countries and cultures are good at waiting. Maybe some particular basketball fans and video games enthusiasts are willing to wait in the dark and the cold, but aren’t waiting just a necessary evil, or a necessary inconvenience?
    Personally, I can’t wait for us to return to worshiping in the renovated sanctuary. My family can’t wait put up the Christmas decorations. Some of you can’t wait for church to be over!
    Who really wants to spend their lives waiting?  In our American culture, waiting is a practically a sin. Waiting is inefficient, wasteful, unproductive. 
    And yet, the people of God, the people who are grafted into the biblical story of salvation seem to be required to do a lot of waiting around. Typical of our Christian story of salvation, what makes little sense in the eyes of the secular world actually helps us Christians make sense of the world. What I mean is that by observing Advent, we discover that waiting, itself, can be a gift.

Waiting as a Gift
    Think of Advent is a kind of waiting room. Advent is a season where we are invited to sit back and think about what we are waiting for and  how we want to go about that waiting. Now, in the season after Pentecost, we are not waiting around, we are told to get moving. Disciples move out from Jesus’ ascension, and get busy in the ministry and mission of the church. There is work to be done; good news to be shared. Mission statements to be written and executed.  Lent, on the other hand, can be our season to step back and look more into our hearts. Lent is a time to contemplate the way of the cross, to ponder the relationship of suffering and sacrifice to Christ’s work of redemption. Our waiting in Advent is similar to the waiting of Lent; we accept a certain urgency for self examination and repentance of our sins. But Advent does not focus so much on the journey from death to life, as upon the time between this life and the next.
    The mystery of Advent is that the wait itself is a gift! The gifts don’t come just at the end of Advent, when Christmas finally arrives, but the waiting itself blesses us. That is because there is plenty happening within the waiting.
    It is not a time of passivity, but a time of preparing. It is not a time of despairing of our disappointments, but repenting of our sins and receiving the liberty of absolution.
     This is not a time for anxiety about the end of time, but joyful anticipation of a new heaven and a new earth. It is not a time to silence the cries of the needy, but to listen more deeply to what God would have us do this day that we would give a good answer to God’s judgment on the final day.
    Waiting, in a secular, consumer driven world can just be a waste of time.
    Waiting in a sacred world can be a sanctification of our every moment.

Waiting as a Practice; as a Virtue
      Let me just say it here as straightforwardly as I can: in the season of Advent, we are invited to slow down for a time; to  stop working so hard, stop doing so much, stop trying to control so much and just watch, look, listen and trust in what God is doing around us and among us right now! Waiting becomes a rich opportunity for receiving God now, in this mortal life, even as we still wait for him to come again at the end of time. It is time to repent and rejoice while we wait. One goes hand and hand with the other!
     On the one hand, this time of year in the weeks before Christmas is hardly a time for passivity or complacency. I wish you could have seen the activity around this place yesterday. Families arriving to have their pictures taken for our new pictorial directory. Christmas trees and wreaths delivered by the EYC and their advisors,  The numerous people who have set up the Alternative Gift Fair and poinsettias, who have and made available Share Your Christmas opportunities are all acting in the best  spirit of Advent, waiting as preparation. They wait on the Lord by waiting, that is serving, others. We wait for the coming of our Lord by waiting upon, serving the Christ in others.
      So while Advent teaches us not to live in detached complacency, it does not, at the other end of the spectrum demand that we live in fear and dread about the end of the world. I have no reason to doubt the writer of the Epistle of 2 Peter that the earth will one day be dissolved with fire. But I will also take the writer’s advice that it is no concern of mine when such things might happen. My only concern, our only concern, should be to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Waiting as an Act of Trust
    Advent gives me the chance to make my prayer that I can become more trusting in the truth of Jesus Christ, less anxious about what I have left undone that ought to have been done and just plain enjoy the rush of anticipation for the good things that are ahead of us. Think of it kind of like gestation:  No telling what new life is about to be born in us, individually, as a parish, or as the universal church. Like pregnancy, much of the work is hidden from our immediate sight, mysterious and beyond our control. We believe, though we may not be able to see, that God is working more in us than we can ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3: 20)
    And so we trust in the Lord, practicing patient perseverance by trusting first and always in God, our patient perseverance leads to wise discernment; and that wise discernment leads to discovery. And our discovery is often that God has surprised us with a gift we couldn’t’ have asked for or designed, or possibly deserve.
    Unlike the bright and beautiful gifts that will slowly start accumulating under the Christmas tree, God’s gifts are frequently hard to recognize at first. They are wrapped more in the camouflage of ordinary life than glittering paper and bows.
    For instance a disappointing outcome, such as a rejection can sometimes end up being the best possible outcome. The loss of one opportunity can, at a later time, be seen as the beginning of a better opportunity. You might discover that rather annoying, funny talking person from another part of the country can turn into one of your best friends in the world.  You might finally hear the haranguing words of John the Baptist’s call for repentance as the beautiful invitation to give up a way of life that is killing you and accept a way of life that waits for you.
    You might discover like the Jews who went out of their way, out of the city to a cold river in the dessert that a little time out in the wilderness will sent you back to our life by a whole new path.
     When it comes to God’s way of working in the world, we often have to WAIT FOR IT.  Like an outstanding sports team that won’t give in to panic or despair, we sometimes have to wait, and wait, and wait for it.  The Lord has a strange sense of time, after all: “one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:8)
    We have to wait for it. Wait for God to show us when and how to move, when to sit and listen. When to get on our knees and repent. When to stand and rejoice. We may not know how much time we have to get ready, but we also know we already have everything we need. AMEN.

This page updated 04 December 2005