Waiting for Christmas
Luke 3:1-17
December 17, 2006
Back in the late 1980’s when I was pastor over at First UMC in Morocco, Indiana, I was approached by a gentleman from the congregation asking about my choice of hymns. “Why can’t we sing Christmas hymns?”
It has been December for a couple of weeks and we had yet to sing a Christmas hymn in church. I told him that we weren’t singing Christmas hymns because it wasn’t Christmas yet, although the next week I gave in. In the years since, I have loosened up a bit. People want to sing Christmas songs in December and I have come to believe that happy parishioners are sometimes more important than liturgical correctness.
But that is what this season is all about. We are still in Advent. The Christmas season, despite what you find at the malls and shopping centers, has not yet come. We are waiting for Christmas. Don’t we all tell our children that something good is worth waiting for?
On the other hand, we have become accustomed to not waiting. We certainly hate to wait for anything, don’t we? Waiting causes so much discomfort and we want to get right to the good stuff and the warm fuzzies; right to the stuff that makes us feel good. If I’m hungry, I can pop a frozen dinner into the microwave and be eating in five and a half minutes. Need some popcorn to go with my Sunday Night Football? Three minutes and twenty seconds later, I can be munching to my heart’s content.
Why take the time to shop at the mall when I can do all that stuff on the internet without ever getting out of my pajamas? Why save up for that new stereo or the new digital camera I want as long as there is plastic? Just charge it and worry about the interest payments later.
I guess that it is understandable why it is so difficult to wait through the Advent season when we consider our get-it-any-way-we-want-it world. The Christmas lights have been up since Halloween, Santa Claus has arrived in the department stores, holiday shopping has begun in earnest, and the Fort Wayne District Christmas party was two weeks ago.
But I would like you to consider Advent and Christmas today, because they are two separate seasons. Christmas is not something we can just jump into without being ready. Waiting in Advent is a time of preparation. We can’t be fully ready for Christmas unless we are prepared to accept Christ and adopt the lifestyle to which he calls us. Advent is the time to get our lives in line so that we will be ready when Jesus finally does get here.
When you think about it, Christians ought to be better at waiting and preparing than anybody else because we’ve had so much practice. Think back through our history. God called Abraham and told him to go into a far land where his descendants would number as the stars in the heavens. It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen in a year or even in a decade. But God was preparing Abraham through his waiting.
The Children of Israel waited in Egyptian slavery for four-hundred years as God prepared them for the time when they would renew the covenant made with Abraham. When Moses led them out from Egypt, they anxiously waited for a homecoming in the Promised Land. God kept them waiting for forty years, preparing them for life which acknowledged him as the only source of their hope and strength.
David was promised the throne of Israel, but the wait was long and arduous. The long wait was a time when he was preparing to be the kind of leader who could guide the nation to greatness.
The prophets who came later sought to prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. They told the nation that it would have to endure a time of waiting and preparation for a time when they would be cleansed through suffering for service. Through it all, they waited for the coming of Messiah, the One who would truly set the nation free; the One who would be their salvation.
For two thousand years now, we have waited for Jesus to return to set up his new Kingdom. We wait for the coming of the day when the Lord will reign in the new heaven and the new earth. Though we ought to understand times of waiting and preparation better than most others, we too find it difficult sometimes. Waiting is hard.
As God prepares us for the coming of Christ, we find that he has different ideas of what we need than we have. Especially in modern day America, where we go out of our way to avoid discomfort; we sometimes find the time of waiting through Advent to be excruciating.
December is supposed to be a time for warm fuzzies. It is a time to sit by the fire listening to Nat King Cole sing “The Christmas Song” or Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas.” If we have to wait for Christmas, at least we can be comfortable, right? The problem is that, in Advent, just as you snuggle down into your favorite recliner, the door bursts open, cold wind and snow blows in, and there standing in the middle of the room is a very strange looking man. He has a long, scraggly beard and wears a camel-skin coat. There is urgency in his voice and fire in his eyes. He pops a couple of locusts in his mouth and walks over to your recliner, obviously intending to say something.
“How nice,” he says, “that you are so warm and comfortable. The holly and mistletoe over the fireplace certainly looks lovely. But what have you done lately for peace and justice among God’s people? Have you shared your bounty with those who have none? Oh, and by the way, have you repented of your sins?”
Yes, it’s John the Baptist. Here he comes again, just like he does every year at this time. We feel mellow and happy all the while he calls us snakes in the grass. Talk about someone who throws cold water on your party. We want to enjoy our season and he doesn’t much care. He just wants to know what we have done for the Kingdom lately. You want to enjoy the Christmas season and he just wants to ask you hard, searching questions. Those questions turn out to be much harder than roasting chestnuts on an open fire.
“So what should we do?” we want to know. John actually offers some good advice. If some people have too much and other people not enough, share. That’s not a suggestion.
It actually is the same story as the manna in the wilderness while the Children of Israel wandered. God gave the manna which, if not collected, would dry up and blow away. That actually prevented hoarding. Nobody should have too much and nobody should have too little. Everybody should have just enough. That certainly challenges our notions of wealth, doesn’t it? The example set by God is that we should not try to accumulate all that we can. It challenges all of those self-centered notions about investing our time and talents only for the purpose of making ourselves happy and comfortable.
“Don’t make your own comfort and happiness your first priority,” says John. Strive instead for justice and peace among all of God’s people. Put your money, time, and talents into kingdom investments. You know, as hard as I try, I can’t think of any holiday music that would fit for a good accompaniment to that message.
There were some powerful people in John’s audience that day…soldiers and tax collectors. They understandably have some searching questions. “What should we do?” they asked. John’s answer is simple, yet in the real world, so very difficult. He tells them to be fair and nonviolent, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
You know, we find that we are not really ready for the coming of the Messiah. We have a whole load of self-centeredness and ego-centricity to get rid of. We are not yet ready to live the kind of lifestyle demanded by the Christ. That is why our waiting is so important.
John is not here to spoil our holidays, but simply to point us in the right direction. He is here to confront us with our impurities and sins…to show us that the things we think are important really aren’t. This purifying fire comes not from the fireplace, but from the very mouth of God.
Waiting is so hard, yet we need to be honest. Aren’t good things that much better when we have waited for them? Ask parents who have waited those long nine months to welcome a child into their midst. Ask the high school student who has waited those long, seeming unending four years about the joy of finally walking across the stage and receiving his or her diploma.
Ask the cancer patient who has endured weeks and months of difficult treatment, who has now received a clean bill of health. Ask the athlete who has trained for months and run hundreds of miles in preparation, who finally has the winning medal placed around his or her neck.
Ask the young couple contemplating marriage who has not given into the temptation to engage in pre-marital sexual behavior. Ask them about the wonders of finally giving themselves to each other in total and complete harmony.
Ask the family gathering in the kitchen while the Christmas turkey bakes in the oven. They could pick and piece at all the goodies, but how much better to wait until the entire dinner is set before them and they can enjoy it fully in the presence of those they most love.
It is not Christmas yet. The waiting is hard. But the waiting is necessary. It heightens our anticipation, controls our self-centered desires, reminds us of what really is important, and gives us the opportunity to restructure our living so that there is room for Jesus.
John’s message is not meant to dampen our preparations or smother our good times. His message is meant to prepare us so that we are ready to experience the fullness of joy.
We wait, but in our waiting, God is working. God is preparing us for the coming of Messiah. Let’s not rush through this season. Christmas cannot really be Christmas unless and until we have prepared for it. Waiting for Christmas may seem like standing on tiptoes for a thousand years, but the wait is worth it.
Do you remember Soviet Major Yuri Gagarin, the first person to orbit the earth in a spacecraft? While in outer space, he made the comment that he was looking for God, but didn’t see him anywhere. What he didn’t understand was that Christians never expected anyone to be able to wave at God or bump into his kingdom while orbiting the globe.
God’s kingdom is not “out there” somewhere. It is right here in the midst of us. The proof of that is the coming of God into our world in the form of a babe in a manger. He is here. He is coming. He will come again. May we all be prepared.
