We've been waiting for what seems like a long time now, at least for the children. The presents have been under the tree for days and maybe weeks. Will it ever come? “We can't wait!” We've heard children say that again and again, haven't we? But there is good news for you, children. It's almost here! Only two shopping days left, only three more days until Christmas is here! We can hardly wait!
Christmas, I think, is all about waiting, waiting with eager expectation. “Expectation” means that we are eagerly looking forward to something—hopefully something that promises good things to come for us. If we are expecting bad things to come, it fills us, instead, with a sense of dread. There are those for whom Christmas is more an expectation that brings about a sense of dread than of eager expectation. I think of the homeless, the hungry, the depressed, the weary. I think of those whose lives are dominated by hurt and anger and resentment from relationships broken and from love denied or betrayed. And I think of those whose lives have become disrupted and disjointed by war or terror.
For most of us life brings some mixture of dread, or at least anxiety, and eager expectation. It's the things we dread that call into question the meaning and even the worth of our lives. And sometimes it's not so much a matter of actual dread, but more a matter of simple boredom that threatens life's meaning and worth. We need to have something that we're looking forward to, something we are hoping for, if life is to have joy. It seems that God created us to need times of expectation to give meaning to our lives.
So what is it that you are waiting for? For Christmas to come? For presents to open? For family gatherings? For that bountiful holiday meal? In no time at all those will all have become memories, and we will be turning to other expectations—a New Year's Eve party, a special winter outing, the warmth of home on a stormy winter day. And then before we know it we will be looking forward to spring, to Good Friday, and the celebration of Easter. What an abundance of expectations lie before us! We who worship the Christ-child, born in Bethlehem's stable, are blessed with a wealth of expectations, surprises that are worth waiting for, hoping for, joys that linger long after Christmas.
Let's listen to what the prophet Isaiah was looking forward to, waiting for, eagerly anticipating. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,..and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding...He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.”
It was not a happy time for the people of Israel. The Assyrians were encamped right across the border, ready to pounce and destroy Jerusalem, carrying the people away into captivity. That glorious tree that had been Israel under King David is now about to be reduced to a stump. In that context of despair Isaiah looks for something surprising to grow out of that stump. What was he waiting for, in his time? What expectations did he have for that child who, we now know, was born in Bethlehem's stable?
Isaiah paints a vivid picture of what he was waiting for. He was looking for the coming of some One who would be filled with the Spirit of God and therefore full of counsel and divine might, of knowledge and understanding, who would put an end to all wickedness by his coming. Two things would characterize this special One: righteousness and faithfulness. “He will not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear,” writes Isaiah, “but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.”
Righteousness in the Old Testament always refers to making sure that the poor and the meek get their share. That doesn't happen much in the world as we know it, but that is Isaiah's eager expectation as he envisions the coming of the Messiah. “Righteousness will be the girdle of his waist.” The poor will be fully provided for, and those who cannot speak for themselves will have their needs taken care of. The wicked, who wantonly take advantage of the poor and the weak, will no more be found in the land.
And faithfulness: all this will come about, according to Isaiah's expectation and vision, because “faithfulness shall be the girdle of his loins.” Faithfulness has to do with sticking with the agenda to the very end, no matter what comes. But it's not just his own agenda that this One is faithful to—it's God's agenda that he sticks with, God's agenda for righteousness and justice for everyone in the world. Sticking with it, we now know, even to that very end—of death by crucifixion.
For Isaiah one expectation gives rise to another. As he contemplates a world where justice and righteousness prevail, not just occasionally or for a brief time, but everywhere and always, the prophet's eager expectation rises to magnificent heights. He pictures a world that he longs for in the depths of his being, a world full of real and lasting peace. It is the SHALOM that all Israel earnestly desired. In that world of righteousness and justice, “the wolf,” says Isaiah, “shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah sees long-standing enemies dwelling together in harmony. A child leading a wolf and a lamb? Leading a leopard and a baby goat? Can you imagine your child walking fearlessly up to a wolf, a leopard, a lion, or putting his chubby fist into the hole in the ground where a poisonous snake lives, or playing delightfully around the nest of the venomous adder? “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says Isaiah, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
With expectations like these of the One who would come in the name of the Lord, no wonder Isaiah could hardly wait for Christmas to come. And we today still have those same expectations as we look for the coming of the child born in Bethlehem. More than Isaiah could, we have seen righteousness as the girdle of his waist—his concern for the poor as he proclaimed, “Blessed are you poor, for yours in the kingdom of heaven.” And again, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” And we have seen faithfulness as the girdle of his loins. He remained faithful to his mission from God, not just when it was easy and he was popular with the crowds, but also when everyone forsook him, even Peter. He remained faithful to God's mission all the way to the end, even to death on a cross.
As Christmas approaches, what are you waiting for? Does that little babe in the manger excite your expectations, as he did Isaiah's? What are you waiting for, that you want right now? Heaven, maybe? Not me. I like it here. I'm not quite ready for heaven yet. Which reminds me of a story told by Dr. Lewis Smedes about his teaching a religion class at Calvin College. He asked his class, “How many of you want to go to heaven?” All hands went up. “And how many of you want to go tomorrow morning?” No hands went up. Then he asked another question: “How many of you would like to wake up tomorrow morning and discover a world in which all the poor had plenty, all the hungry had more than enough to eat; there was no war, and no one suffered injustice; Israelis and Palestinians happily shared the land together, Iranians and Saudis were living peacefully within their own borders, Isis fighters had all laid down their guns, and prejudice and bigotry in America were a thing of the past. How many of you would like to wake up tomorrow morning to that kind of world?” All hands went up. Mine would, too. That's Isaiah's vision. That's the expectation that excites us, too, as we worship the child born in Bethlehem, and long for the coming of his kingdom.
What do we do, what can we do, with those expectations? Perhaps we can best do what Isaiah himself had to do: wait. Wait for God's coming into our world to fully accomplish His purpose with this world—a world that God so deeply loved, and continues to love, that he sent his only son to be born into it. Waiting is what Christmas teaches us to do.
Waiting is often a matter of enduring frustration. Waiting is not something that comes easily for us. But waiting for the coming of God's Kingdom, the coming of his Christ, is what belongs to the heart of faith. In the Psalms, I am told, there are more than 40 verses that commend waiting. In waiting, we acknowledge that this world belongs to God and that he is taking care of it and will continue to take care of it even when we cannot see it or understand how. Waiting for the coming of God's kingdom expresses the conviction that God himself, he who created this world, will set all things right again. Because Christ has come and is coming again, Christmas keeps alive the expectation that peace will come to our world, with righteousness and justice for all. Faith-infused waiting keeps us from losing heart. It also reminds us that it is not by our cleverness and hard work that this will be accomplished, but only by the sovereign God who moves in mysterious ways, on his own timetable. So we wait—with eager expectation.
Waiting, we realize, also implies watching. Many of Jesus parables and his references to the apocalyptic end times call on his followers to be watchful in their waiting. Waiting is not passive inactivity. To be waiting for Christmas, for his coming to our world, involves keeping your eyes open, staying alert—watching. So the question, “What are you waiting for?” becomes also “What are you watching for?” When we stand or kneel before the Christ-child in the manger and raise our hopes for what he will accomplish, then we keep our eyes open for signs of his coming in and to our world. Wherever you see indications of kindness, of love, of compassion, of concern for justice, there you recognize signs of God's coming. When you see a falsely convicted prisoner set free, when you see your fellowman reach out to feed a hungry family, when you see collections of clothing being distributed to those in need, when you see peacemakers hard at work to prevent conflict, when you hear the voices of children raised in songs of thanksgiving, let your faith be renewed. There are, indeed, signs of God's love and Christ's righteousness at work in surprising places in our world, offering the promise of something much bigger and much better yet to come.
And we all have a part to play. There is more to waiting than watching. Waiting also becomes a matter of working for what we are wishing for. Not the kind of working that makes us think we are the builders of the kingdom of God—that's God's work. We, however, are signs that point to the coming day of justice and peace. “You are my witnesses,” Jesus tells us (Acts 1:8). We who follow Jesus and believe in him become ourselves signs of his coming. When we reach out to the homeless in caring love, to the poor, to the hurting, to those in prison, we don't really hasten the day of his coming or make the Day of Peace come any faster, but we become signs in the world that that day is coming. The most worthwhile thing any of us can do is to live in the light of that promised coming. It is by how we live that we keep hope alive in and for our world. Our lives from beginning to end are signs that God is at work in our world. Emmanuel, God with us, is the expectation that Christmas keeps alive--in us and through us, in our world and for our world.
Christmas really is all about exciting possibilities that only God could dream of. This is how the hymn writer Isaac Watts puts that dream into words for us :
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun does its successive journeys run,
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.
To him shall endless prayer be made, and praises throng to crown his head.
His name like sweet perfume shall rise with every morning sacrifice.
People and realms of every tongue dwell on his love with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name.
Blessings abound where'er he reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains,
the weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blest.
Merry Christmas!
