God's Waiting Room

God's Waiting Room

I. TEXT: Luke 2:1-38 (NRSV)

KEY VERSES: Luke 2:25-38 (NRSV)

II. Introduction:

Waiting room: a room provided for the use of people waiting to be seen by a doctor or dentist or waiting in a station for a bus or train.

Doctors' waiting rooms are often filled with sick people - -people hoping for an excellent report from the physician about their tests. Poor crying children who would rather be anywhere else. There are all the old magazines on the end tables that you can browse through or the reruns of old soap operas on the small screen. Waiting rooms.

Then there are the private waiting rooms that we sit in waiting to see the doctor after the nurse has taken our vitals and weighed us. These waiting rooms can be cold, and sometimes depending on what they require us to wear there, they can be freezing.

We sit and wait to see the therapist and the attorney. Waiting rooms.

There are also large waiting rooms that we sit in as we wait to enter a flight or even those we stand around before we go in to see a play. There are all kinds of emotions in the airport waiting area. Someone waiting to go on a trip they have saved for for a long time. There may be newlyweds heading on their honeymoon. Others may be heading home from a business trip. Some are anxious about getting on the flight. And yet, no matter what, they have one thing in common, they are in the waiting area. Waiting rooms.

Those who play some online games spend time in waiting areas as other players arrive. We discovered during the pandemic that there are even waiting rooms for our Zoom conference calls.

When you entered this building this morning, you entered the foyer that serves as a kind of waiting room before you entered the sanctuary.

We spend much of our lives waiting on one thing or another. We wait for time to go to work and time to go home from work. We wait for the packages to arrive that we have ordered. We wait for Christmas. We wait for children to be born. Life is filled with waiting rooms. We wait with fear. We wait with joy. We wait with anticipation. We wait with dread. We wait wondering what will be next. We have this in common with everyone around us; we wait...

And God even has a waiting room. God rarely does things on our timeline. As one of my friends often says, "God is never on time, but He is always timely." Always.

The Advent/Christmas season is a season in which we wait. We wait for December 25, when we will celebrate the birth of JESUS by celebrating with one another. It has become popular to read the Gospel of Luke during December because you can read a chapter a day and complete the Gospel the day before Christmas. Luke has 24 chapters. It's not too late to catch up.

As we anticipate Christmas and remember that JESUS is coming again, I want to share a thought with you about God's Waiting Room.

III. Movement 1: Waiters

The first two chapters of Luke are filled with waiters. Not waiters who serve customers at restaurant tables, but those who wait for a time, event, or opportunity. They were waiting on multiple things but found themselves in the same waiting room, God's.

Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were waiters. They had waited so long that they had long since given up on the hope that they would have a son. Then one day, as Zechariah was just doing what he was supposed to be doing, he received a heavenly message that, past the time, God was fulfilling His promise. They were going to have a child who would be the forerunner of the Messiah - John the Baptist.

Mary waited as an espoused young virgin. She was waiting on her wedding day. Waiting to become a mother one day. She was just doing what she was supposed to do. Then she received a heavenly announcement that, ahead of time, God was fulfilling His promise. She was going to have a Child before she could through the Power of the HOLY SPIRIT - JESUS CHRIST.

It doesn't matter if the window of opportunity is closed or has never been opened; when we wait on God, HE can do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think according to the power that works in us!

I'm sure the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night were waiting on their paychecks. They were waiting on the morning, and, like all of Israel, they were waiting on the Messiah to come and set things right. They longed for justice and freedom from the oppression of the Roman government. They were longing for economic wholeness. They were, like David, just taking care of the sheep... Just doing what they were supposed to do, they suddenly received a heavenly message that told them where the Messiah would be born and sent them on a mission to see Him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger!