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"The Waiting Season" | Isaiah 64: 1-9 | December 1, 2002 |
After the exile in Babylonia, a small group had made their way back to the ruins of Jerusalem, earlier sacked by the Babylonians. They were experiencing the absence of God. “If only the heavens would open wide and we would see God’s overriding majesty, God’s justice and grace revealed to us and to all this sorry world. If only the firmament were rent and goodness poured down into the midst of our lives. If only all that is wrong with this world could be burned away and God’s children vindicated and restored.” (John Stendahl, Christian Century, November 6-19, 2002)
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, a season in which we prepare for the Advent of Messiah. The church has always prepared for Christmas by getting back to Biblical times, back to the time of Israel, the time before Christ's coming, to experience what it was like to wait for a Messiah.
That's the mood of the Advent hymns.
O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
The hymn captures the mood of Advent; a time of absence, a time of expectation, a time of not-having, a time of waiting on God to act.
Part of the purpose of Advent is to get us to experience what it is like "to wait in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear." If we can understand/experience what it was like for Israel to wait for the Messiah, then perhaps we will see that that is what we are to do, that is what we are doing now. To the extent that our life is a time of waiting, a time of absence, this, too, is Advent.
Waiting is a pervasive experience. Most of the waiting we do has a negative connotation. Waiting in line (have you been at the airport recently?); Waiting in traffic; waiting in the Dr.’s waiting room; holding the phone waiting for the online help from the company whose name is on our computer. So we do not like to wait. Modern advertisers know we do not like to wait so they say to us “Right now is the time to have everything.” “You don’t have to wait; you have instant credit; you can have this before Christmas.” You don’t have to wait for things to be on sale; they are on sale now! You see, waiting seems almost un-American. Yet, waiting can be a spiritual journey. Did you notice we lit only one candle today? That’s because we still have some waiting to do. Not just until our building renovation is finished but until we gather in this room on midnight on Christmas Eve and wish each other “Merry Christmas.” There are two more purple candles and a pink one yet to go–and it will still not be Christmas. We have some waiting to do. We are beginning the Church’s official ‘waiting season.’ If you read the Bible, you will discover in profound ways that the Bible is the story of what faithful people did while they waited. The scripture is full of promises not yet fulfilled. Today’s scripture comes from a time when the Israelites had come struggling back to Jerusalem. Their temple was gone, their nation was destroyed, and the prophet Isaiah remembered stories of the times when God had delivered God’s people. The prophet says, “We believe that we are clay in the hands of a potter God and that God will one day bring God’s time again and we’ll wait with hope.”
It becomes hard to hold the faith that God is indeed in control of history. The heavens do not open, not in the way the prophet cries for.
Beneath the firmament, history continues to play out its tragedies. We ourselves recall a little over a year ago seeing the sky’s lovely ceiling change to horror and then descend in choking clouds of dust. So we may be reluctant to embrace the message of Advent which tells us to welcome the unpredictable because disasters are packaged with similar wrapping. There may be an uncomfortable ring to the admonitions we find in the Advent scriptures to be prepared, be alert and keep awake. The creation of the Office of Homeland Security and the realities of terrorist activities on our own soil have given those words an ominous sound. We yearn with the prophet for a renewal of hope.
O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
We pray for the Advent, for the presence of the Prince of Peace among us. Often when we talk about Holy Communion we talk of the "presence" of Christ in our sharing of the bread and wine. We want to be open to any opportunity for God’s presence. Jesus kept telling his disciples--and so also us--the kingdom of God is now. We need not wait until our prayers for presence are answered. And "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" isn't an Advent wish, but a present fact. Already. Now. The realm of God is with us and the realm of God is work entrusted to us.
In Matthew's version of the Lord's Supper, Jesus broke the bread, offered the cup, and then said this: "I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." There is no declaration here (as in Luke and I Corinthians) that this is a memorial feast, something to be done "in remembrance of him." The emphasis is not upon the past, but upon the future. "The next time we drink this cup together will be in the kingdom of God." The season of Advent is a good time to recover this emphasis of Jesus. So we come to this table not only in remembrance of him, but also in anticipation of his presence with us. Sometimes meeting him in the smile of a friend, the need of a child, the sharing of the bread and the cup. Joseph Jeter has written, "We may never be closer to heaven in this world than gathered about a manger in an old barn, listening to a young mother gentle her newborn son. Except, possibly, when we gather about his table, remembering and looking forward." Let us share Communion. Amen
Joe Dunham
| Copyright © 2002 by Joe Dunham. All rights reserved. |