“Guidelines for Christmas: Hurry Up and Wait”
Is. 40:27-31; Micah 5:2-5; Luke 1:1-10
Waiting is hard. Young children see gifts under the tree and beg to open ‘just one’ early. When told “No, you need to wait!” they respond “I can’t wait that long!” A person with great pain is told by the doctor’s office, “He can see you in a month.” She responds, “I can’t wait that long!” Parents get word that their son, who lives across the country, has been involved in an accident and is in serious condition. They call the airlines and are told the earliest flight available is the next morning. They plead, “We can’t wait that long!” Waiting is hard.
Advent is a time of waiting. Lk. 1:5 – “In the time of Herod…” In the time – in God’s time something amazing happened; something, someone, came to those who were waiting. So this morning we consider THE MATTER OF WAITING. Preacher and author Calvin Miller wrote that he had been preaching on the second coming of Jesus and was trying to say how most of us would like to adjust the timing just a bit. We want Jesus to come…but after the kids graduate, we get our first royalty check, or something else. To illustrate he told about his daughter Melanie’s reaction to his rule that she could not date until she was 16. At 15 and ¾ years of age a boy asked her to go to the Christmas Prom. When Calvin stood firm she became incensed and said, “Dad, I just hope the Lord comes back between now and February so you have to live with yourself all through eternity knowing that I never had a date!” (1) Waiting is hard. WE DO NOT LIKE TO WAIT.
Waiting is especially hard if we hurry up for something and then have to wait. You rush to the airport to get there in ample time to go through security – and then sit hours at the gate – waiting to board your flight. A wife begins experiencing labor pains so the couple heads to the hospital – and waits, for hours, for the baby to arrive. You hurry to make it to the doctor’s office on time for your test – and you wait, and wait, and wait. You learn about something exciting so immediately text your friends – then wait for what seems like an eternity for them to respond. You order that cherished item via the internet and your anxiety increases each day it does not arrive; you convince yourself you just cannot wait. You pray for something to happen, and it doesn’t; so you pray again, and again, and again. You share Jesus Christ with a lost friend and she doesn’t respond; you’re frustrated because you so long to see her come to Jesus. It’s hard to wait; we don’t like to wait.
GOD’S PEOPLE ARE OFTEN CALLED TO WAIT. Remember when Moses went up on Mt. Sinai to meet with God? Because he didn’t return quickly the people rebelled and made a golden calf. They found it hard to wait for God to work out His purpose; and they didn’t like waiting. Luke, in his Gospel, lets us know that Zechariah and Elizabeth knew about hurrying and waiting as well. The whole of chapter one is filled with waiting. On one hand two women wait for the birth of their very special babies. On the other hand, all of creation is waiting. Both the women and the world are waiting for the purposes, plans, and promises of God to be worked out – which is precisely where we are this morning. We are waiting for Jesus to return, for God to work all things out.
In fact, GOD IS OUR MODEL OF WAITING. From Genesis with its “He shall crush his head” to Revelation with its “new heaven and a new earth,” God waits. He waited for Abraham to arrive at his appointed place. He waited while Noah built the ark. He waited for an entire generation of Israelites to die off in the wilderness so the next generation could enter the Promised Land. God waited 400 years from the time of Malachi, at the end of the Old Testament, to the birth of Jesus. He waited nine months for the birth of His Son. He waited 33 years for the cross. He waited three more days for the victory to be complete.
The Apostle Peter wrote that EVEN NOW GOD IS WAITING. He was writing to a people who were undergoing persecution and were wondering when Jesus was returning; they weren’t sure they could wait much longer. So Peter said (2 Pt. 3:8-9 GNT): “But do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same. The Lord is not slow to do what he has promised, as some think. Instead, he is patient with you…” Eyvind Skeie, in a little story about death and hope called “Summerland” wrote, “But I cannot say anything about the light unless I first tell you about the One Who Is Waiting. That is what I call Him, the One Who Is Waiting. I know it is a strange name but I am quite sure He likes this name better than any other. For that is exactly what He does, He is waiting – always.” GOD IS PATIENT, LONG-SUFFERING, AND FAITHFUL.
Listen again to Peter: “But do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same. The Lord is not slow to do what he has promised, as some think. Instead, he is patient with you because he does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.” GOD CAN WAIT BECAUSE HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING. God is waiting, giving everyone the opportunity to turn to Him. God knows how long that will take; He knows what it will take. God is working all things out.
But how can we wait so long? What does a MINDSET OF WAITING involve? When we have faith in God’s sovereignty – when we BELIEVE THAT GOD IS IN CHARGE AND WORKING ALL THINGS OUT FOR GOOD – we can begin to accept and rise above the situations and circumstances of our lives. This is not the same as giving up; it is not reluctant surrender to whatever happens. No – Zechariah, Elizabeth, and even Mary were blessed because they accepted their calling and everything it involved – even waiting, knowing something good was about to happen. A speaker at Wheaton College Chapel shared his faith with the Wheaton Community. He said “Life is something that happens to you when you have other plans.” He went on to relate that he had lost his wife, through a sudden death, his teenage son had to be committed to a psychiatric hospital, and his daughter had gone through two divorces. He told that he had to learn that he was not in control of life. For him, living was no longer in directing his own course so much as it was learning how to rest in the sovereignty of God.
That’s faith. It is the presence of the Spirit who enables us to believe that the invisible purposes of God are being worked out for and through us. God’s prenatal activity in Elizabeth and Mary only proves it. He will, in His way, bring justice, peace, and healing to the world. He worked in a loving, sovereign way with an elderly woman, too old to bear children, and in a young maiden, a virgin. He worked through a birth in a stable. He had a King born in Bethlehem. He used a cross for a throne. He used a tomb for a symbol of life.
R. Benjamin Garrison once wrote about the Christmas his wife gave him something he really wanted – a computerized chess game. He said that one night he found himself shouting at the game, “All right, you idiot, if you’re going to cheat, I won’t play with you any longer.” But of course the game had not cheated; it has simply and subtly made a decisive move several minutes before that he had not seen. The computer, all the while edging towards the inevitable victory, let him go on making his moves – some good and some bad. Garrison then said, “This is quite like what God had done in the serious game of life and salvation. Sometime back – over 20 centuries ago – God made the decisive but mostly unnoticed move, in sending Christ into the world. That move secured the future. That move guaranteed the outcome. Meanwhile, we are free to go on making our moves on the chessboard of life, some rather good, other unbelievably bad. Yet all the while God is edging us toward the inevitable triumph – not over us, but in us.” (2) God is sovereign. So we rest in God’s care as we wait confidently with anticipation.
In addition to believing in God’s sovereignty, we ACCEPT THE MYSTERY OF HOW GOD USES US. We recognize that God can use us, and does use us, at any age to do anything He desires us to do – even to do the impossible. He asked Zechariah to believe the impossible and Elizabeth and Mary to do the impossible and called them all in the middle of their daily routines. Isn’t that the way God often appears to us? We are told by Luke that Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous – they lived obediently and continued to worship and serve God in spite of Elizabeth’s barrenness. And that’s where God appeared to them.
HE OFTEN APPEARS IN THE MUNDANE AND ROUTINE AS WE OBEDIENTLY LIVE OUR LIVES. So any day, every day we may be visited and confronted by God – maybe even with the impossible. A bush could at any time begin to burn; a vacant desert could blossom like a rose; a barren womb could become fruitful. We remain obedient, continue to worship and serve, while LOOKING FOR GOD’S WORD TO US IN EVERY SITUATION AND PLACE OF OUR LIVES. The only other option is to look for nothing and find it.
So what is your waiting room today? Concern for a child? The need for a relationship to change? For school to end? For illness to depart? For a job to develop? For times to get better? For pain to go away? For God to reveal His plan for your life more clearly? Hurry up and wait.
Hurry up and wait by STRIVING TO LIVE A GODLY LIFE. Peter in his letters wrote (2 Pt. 3:11-14 GNT): “… what kind of people should you be? Your lives should be holy and dedicated to God, as you wait for the Day of God and do your best to make it come soon… we wait for what God has promised: new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will be at home. And so, my friends, as you wait for that Day, do your best to be pure and faultless in God's sight and to be at peace with him.” And what does that look like? (1 Pt. 2:12) “Live such godly lives among the pagans that, although they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (2 Pt. 1:3a, 5-9) “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you posses these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is what Advent is all about: waiting. And how can we wait so long? By living a Spirit-filled life each day, knowing that, in His time, God will appear. Jesus will come. And He’s worth waiting for. So let’s hurry up and wait!
(1) Calvin Miller, “Preaching in the Vulgate,” Leadership, Spring 1983
(2) R. Benjamin Garrison, “Content in Everything: Paul’s Extreme Declaration,” The Christian Ministry, Nov.Dec 1988
