You
also must be ready, for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew
24:44)
The
above passage from Matthew’s gospel, the line which ends the first gospel
lesson for Advent One in Lectionary Year A, is a pretty ominous verse. Jesus is
coming, and we don’t know when. He might just catch us by surprise. I mean,
what if you’re in the shower or gambling in Vegas or doing something you might
be ashamed of? What if you’re busy having a feud with your in-laws or yelling
at your kids when Jesus suddenly shows up and says, “Time’s up!” How would you
feel? Or maybe you’re busy doing something really fun? Maybe you’re at your kid’s
soccer game when the End of the World comes. How would you know who won?
I’m
not really sure that most of us give much thought to Jesus’ return. And yet,
every year at Advent we begin the Prayer of the Day with the words “Stir up
your power, Lord Christ, and come.” Maybe we’re just having too much fun
without the Second Coming. Still, the older I get, the more I understand how
our lives are always about waiting for
something wonderful to happen.
Think
about it. When you’re a kid, you just can’t wait for Christmas (although, I
suspect we are waiting more in the spirit of greed for toys and goodies than we
are waiting to hear about Baby Jesus!). As we get older, we just can’t wait for
adulthood—for our driver’s license, our high school graduation, or our journey
to college when we’ll be free at last of our pesky parents—never suspecting
that they’ve been waiting to be free of us
for a little while, too.
As
adults, we still find ourselves standing in the line of time and circumstances.
We’re waiting to find that special someone who will give our lives joy and
purpose. We wait to get married and we long for the moment when we say “I do.” Of
course, sometimes waiting for a wedding is mixed with both excited longing and
intense anxiety depending on how much of a perfectionist the bride—or her
mother--is. In that case, we just can’t wait to get it over with!
Then
we’ll wait for a better job, for our children to be born, for a special
vacation, a raise, a new house, or retirement. We wait for that magical season when
our favorite local sports team wins the championship (some wait longer than others!).
Sometimes the waiting is much more special than the actual event. When I
graduated from seminary, I waited excitedly for my ordination. When the event
finally arrived, I was so stressed out by the arrangements I’d made I realized
I wasn’t even paying attention to the service.
Sometimes,
we find ourselves with our loved ones gathered around a bedside, waiting for
someone we love to leave this world. Those times feel like the waiting goes on
forever.
Sometimes
we wait, as the song says, for the world to change.
Do
we ever, I wonder, really wait for Jesus? If you do, what does that mean to
you? It seems like everything else for which we wait passes into memory after
it occurs, and we go on waiting for something new. Yet nothing seems to satisfy
us enough for us to say, “My waiting is over. I just want to be in this moment forever.”
When
Advent comes, I always try to take some time to ponder what it means to wait
upon the Lord. Like everyone else, I look forward to those candlelight
liturgies, to singing the Christmas carols, to giving gifts, and having Christmas
Day dinner with my family. And yet I know that these annual rituals are just
the foretaste of the feast to come which will put an end to all waiting. And I
long for that. The little baby, child of an unwed teenager, born homeless in a
stall for animals, lovingly ogled and cooed at by dirty sheep-herding peasants,
came to remind us all that the day will come which will put an end to waiting.
We will have peace. We will know we are loved. We will want no more and hunger
no more. We will sin no more, hate no more, hurt no more. Wait no more.
In
the meanwhile, believing that God’s promise is true, we wait in confidence, and
the waiting is both bearable and lovely.
A
blessed Advent and Christmas to you all.
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