When I was a boy, my brother and I slept in an upstairs bedroom, and always, on Christmas morning, the door at the bottom of the steps would be shut tight. Normally it was kept open, but on Christmas morning, not so. Things were happening on the other side of that door, things we were not to see until it was the right time. We wanted desperately to go to that living room and dive into whatever was under that Christmas tree. But no, we had to wait until our parents opened that door and let us out.
I have to say that we waited badly. Our Advent theme here is “Waiting in the Active Voice.” Well, my brother and I waited in very active voices! We whined, we scuffled, we did everything we could to make something happen. We would shout through the door, “Is it time? Are you ready yet?” But my father would say, “We’re just about to let you out. Just wait. We want everything to be just right.” Somehow it was important to him that the gifts be displayed in an artful way under that tree; a lot of difference that made, given that his boys intended to tear into it with reckless abandon. But he kept us waiting with the promise, “I’m about finished. I’m about to open the door. Just wait. I’m about to …”
If, as they say, the oldest lie in the world is the one that goes, “The check is in the mail,” then the second oldest lie is any sentence that includes the phrase, “I was just about to …” “I was just about to give you a call.” That’s what you say to the credit card guy when he nudges you about that late payment. No, I was not just about to give him a call. In fact I forgot to consult my Caller ID so that I could avoid him altogether.
“I was just about to send those in.” That’s what I said to the seminary registrar’s office when they called. I did not want to tell her I had put off grading exams. It was more or less true that I was about to send in the grades. More or less, maybe less, since I had only just finished with the last exam. But I was about to!
“I was about to clean my room.” I heard that one a few times during my parenting days. “I was about to repair that broken moulding.” My wife has heard that daily for the last week or so, and it still isn’t done. Close, but not quite; I’m about to get to that. About to.
Our problem is that we know what needs to be done, but we don’t get to it until it’s late, and then we feel as though we have to play fast and loose with the truth to cover ourselves. And, of course, when we play the “about to” card, we damage our credibility. Others no longer believe us if we try that too many times. About to? Well, just when, exactly? When will you do what you have said you are about to do? Everything ultimately focuses on whether we can have confidence in the one who claims to be just about to.
We are in an “about to” world. I don’t know that I can remember a time in which there was so much anticipation concerning what is about to happen. We worry that our economy is about to collapse. Maybe some of us have been afraid that we are about to be put out on the street, about to lose our jobs, about to spend a very cold winter without adequate heat. It’s not pleasant, living in an “about to” season like this one.
Is Congress about to help the auto industry? The pundits say that people will not buy cars from a company they feel they cannot trust. Is the store where I shop about to shutter its doors? If I cannot trust them to be here next week, what if I need a refund? Is the governor of Illinois about to resign? He says it’s all just talk and there were no criminal actions, but how can we trust anybody who talks the way he talks? Barack Obama is about to become president of the United States, and it’s as though people are expecting miracles on January 21st. In our minds we know that cannot happen; but in our hearts we just hope that it is about to, and so he takes office with the people’s hopes exceptionally high and the burdens of the task exceptionally heavy. It’s an “about to” time; and everything ultimately comes down to whether we can have confidence in those who are about to.
And so we may hear even God with a degree of skepticism as some twenty-six centuries ago He said, through the prophet we’ve learned to call Trito-Isaiah, that He is “about to create new heavens and a new earth.” It seems an extravagant promise, and now, after all these long years, why should we believe it? About to? Twenty-six centuries? About to?
Remember, everything ultimately comes down to whether we can have confidence in the one who claims to be about to. Is there anything that gives us hope that God’s “about to” will happen? Exactly what is it that God is about to do in creating new heavens and a new earth?
I
For one thing, He promises that He is about to create a world in which there is fulfillment and not disappointment. He is going to make a new heaven and a new earth in which people do not feel as though they have lived in vain. “They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord, and their descendants as well.” God says that He is about to create a world in which there is fulfillment and not disappointment, accomplishment and not futility.
This week I held a funeral for a man who was a member of my parish at Takoma Park. Richard had come to Washington about a dozen years ago, with no job and no prospects, but with a willingness to work and a desire to be close to his mother and his sisters. Richard also dreamed a dream; he wanted to do ministry. He believed God had called him to preach. And so we worked on that dream, but somehow it never came together for Richard. He never quite got out of his financial doldrums, and was eventually evicted but given a place to live by one of our church members. He got a job at a gym, and worked toward becoming a personal trainer, but never quite finished the education necessary for that. Richard was always in an “about to” mode, always about to do the one thing that would fulfill his life goals. And now, suddenly, a heart attack and deceased at age 52.
If God’s “about to” is a world in which people feel fulfillment, it will have to be one in which a life like Richard’s means something. “They shall long enjoy the work of their hands … they shall not labor in vain.”
But everything comes down to whether we can have confidence in the one who claims to be just about to. Do we have reason for confidence that God’s new world where there is fulfillment and not disappointment will in fact be created? Or is this just another cruel “about to” that never materializes?
II
And then, too, God promises that the new world He is about to create will be a world of joy, a world of positive relationships. God says that He is about to frame our world so that Jerusalem will be a joy and its people a delight. That’s a world in which life is deep and rich and there is exuberance just in being together. A world in which people are supportive of one another, and relationships do not go sour. “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.” God’s promise, God’s “about to” – a place where when we encounter one another, we smile with happiness, we shout for joy, and never get bent out of shape. A place whose people are a delight.
I watched and listened in despair one night, as I had brought together into the same room two people who were at each other’s throats. I had heard one of them tear into the other and call her unyielding, stubborn, and petty. And then I had heard the second one call the first one stupid, bossy, and unfair. I knew that this meeting would be no picnic, but it had to be done. I had brought them together to mediate their dispute, but I could scarcely get in a word edgewise. The hostility was so thick I could not breathe. Finally I thought I was about to – to coin a phrase – about to achieve reconciliation, when one of them broke down in tears and said, “I’ve been wrong. Will you forgive me?” But then my heart sank when the second one said, “Well, No. No, I will not forgive you. You were wrong and I was right. No.”
If God’s “about to” is to be a world in which people become a delight, and no cries of distress are heard, it will have to be one in which hearts like those of these two are remade. Do we think that can happen? “I will delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard … or the cry of distress.”
But everything comes down to whether we can have confidence in the one who claims to be just about to. Do we have reason for confidence that God’s new world where there is delight and not distress will in fact be created? Or is this just another cruel “about to” that never materializes?
III
God’s promises go further. Not only is He about to create a new heavens and a new earth where there is fulfillment and not disappointment, and where there is joy and delight and not distress. He is also about to create a world where there is peace, a world where enmity is gone, where armies are no longer necessary and where navies need not sail. This is the biggest “about to” of them all. Yet down deep we just know that this is not going to happen. Not now, not next year, not ever. The history of a world where there is always, somewhere, a war going on tells us that much.
So how could we possibly have any confidence at all in a God who says that He is about to create a world in which “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain”? We just know that this is a world in which competing interests clash, a world in which incompatible ideologies struggle for supremacy, a world in which different races and cultures not only do not get along, but pick fights with one another. That’s just reality. And all your wild ideals about a peaceful world, a world of neighbors, where those who are utterly different from one another can co-exist – we know better, don’t we? And so God’s utterance that He is about to create a world of harmony and peace, where the ravenous and the meek can find a way to live together – that really does seem to us like a terrible hoax. It has not happened, and what makes us think it will happen?
If God’s “about to” is to be a world in which wolves and lambs get along and lions and oxen share the dining table, it will have to be one which addresses this massive and seemingly inevitable human reality. “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” Can this be? Is God dealing with that?
But everything comes down to whether we can have confidence in the one who claims to be just about to. Do we have reason for confidence that God’s new world where there is peace and neither hurt nor destruction will in fact be created? Or is this too just another cruel “about to” that never materializes?
IV
Brothers and sisters, these about to’s are realities even now. These things God has created. And if we do not yet see them completed, if they appear to be hopeless, then look at what God has already done. Look at how He fulfils His promises. Look at how God’s “about to” is already among us.
For God says, through the prophet, “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” God is near and present and with us. God is intimately connected to us, closer than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. He knows our needs, He hears our cries, and He has responded.
For God, our God of “about to”, has fulfilled His promises in the child whose birth we celebrate. In Jesus the Christ, the infant of Bethlehem, the hopes and fears of all the years come together, and God in Him and by Him and through Him is right now, this day, creating this brave new world, this grand new heaven.
And yes, it is one in which there is fulfillment for the desperate and significance for the seeking. My friend Richard, who died far too early with his dreams not yet realized – of him it was said at his funeral that he was steadfast in his witness and brought others to know the Lord. When, only two weeks before his death, he was able at last to see his family, long divided, brought back together in unity because of his witness, Richard expressed profound joy. Just to know that his family were together and committed to Christ – he said that he had never felt such wholeness. The Christ who came and lived among us, full of grace and truth; the one who lived in a family and rubbed shoulders with brothers and sisters and grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man – that Christ brought my friend Richard fulfillment. And He will do that for anyone who trusts Him, for, in the world of “about to”, everything depends on whether you trust the one who has promised that He is about to.
Has God created a new heavens and a new earth with fulfillment and meaning for His children? Yes, yes, for those who will trust Him. The babe of Bethlehem has come and has brought the gift of fulfillment.
And my friends whom I tried to counsel – those women who ended that night in a standoff, with one crying out for forgiveness and the other refusing it – what happened with them? They were in the same church. They worshipped together. They prayed together. They studied the Bible together. And when, months later, the one who had begged fruitlessly for forgiveness was in an accident that resulted in the death of a child, who was the first person to come forward with help and support? Who was the first to offer everything from food to money to a listening ear? Why, it was the one who had refused forgiveness! Do you see? The Christ who gave up His glory and took on our human pain worked a work of reconciliation, and one woman’s profound loss and deep dilemma worked on the heart of another.
Has then God created a new heaven and a new earth with delight and understanding for His children? Yes, yes, for those who will trust Him. The babe of Bethlehem has come and has brought the gift of reconciliation.
And a world at war with itself – nation pitting sword against nation – the proud in their armaments and the oppressors in their palaces – the missiles hurled and the bombs blasting – what shall we say of these? Has our God, the about to God, already dealt with these as well?
It is told that on Christmas Eve, 1914, in Flanders fields, Captain Charles Stockwell of the Fifth Welsh Fusiliers heard, across the churned mud of no-mans-land, the unmistakable sound of voices singing, “Stille Nacht; heilige Nacht” (Silent Night, Holy Night). It was not unusual to hear German soldiers singing; the Welsh fusiliers occasionally sang too. It kept their spirits up. But this was different; this was reverent, this had a mysterious quality. In a moment some of the Welshmen began to sing too, “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come”. Suddenly Stockwell and his men saw German soldiers scrambling out of their trenches, their hands held high so that it was clear that they were not armed. The Welsh too climbed out of their trenches, and the rest of the night was spent in exchanging chocolates, shouting “Merry Christmas” and “Froeliche Weihnachten”, camaraderie and good cheer. For one night at least the Prince of Peace, the babe of Bethlehem, had accomplished what neither weapons nor diplomacy had been able to do.
And if it is not yet finished; if indeed the Welsh Fusiliers and the Westphalian Regiment went back to shooting at one another; if Americans and Iraqis and Afghans are embroiled in terrible conflict; if in despair we bow our heads and cry that there is no peace on earth – at least let us recognize that the God who is about to create a new heaven and a new earth where peace will reign – that God has done what He promised. He has come to be with us. He has come to hear us. He has come to redeem us. He has come to take on all of our trials. He has come to labor with all our temptations. “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
And in this one, Jesus the Christ, He has entered into every conflict, felt every blow, endured every suffering. For this Jesus would in a few short years stand the ultimate test. He would have His life cut short; it looked meaningless, a waste, but it was not. He would feel the sting of the critic’s words and the pain of His friends’ betrayal and denial, seemingly unresolved; but it was not. And He would die beset by His own people and mauled at the hands of Rome, apparently extending the ancient quarrel; but it was not.
For the babe of Bethlehem, come to a cross, was raised on the third day. And in that victory God guarantees that He will finish what He is doing. God’s “about to” has been done. It has been done! And it will be done!
Has God created a new heaven and a new earth with peace for the conflicted and love for the embattled? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, for those who will trust Him. For everything – everything – depends on whether you trust the one who has promised that he is about to.
We live in an about to world. Some day the door at the bottom of the steps will open and on the other side there will be gifts beyond imagination. Just keep faith; wait; trust and obey. God is about to. In fact, He already has.
