Someone worth waiting for
all lessons
HW in HI
There is a strong contrast between Advent and Christmas. Maybe it is
a little like waiting to have a baby, and then getting that baby. When
we’re expecting a child, we have lots of ideas about what the child will
be like: the color of hair and eyes, more like mom or more like dad,
auntie’s wild laugh, or real quiet like great grandpa. So we wait for
the baby to come and we try to get things ready. But when the baby
comes, everything changes. It is sort of like we thought it would be,
but also very different. The baby looks mostly like a baby. We are
needed all the time. But it has its own life, its own direction. And
everything changes. Our lives are never the same again.
During Advent we get ready. We get ready to celebrate the birth of
Jesus and we get ready for his coming again. Once Jesus came into the
world, things were never the same again. Never. Now Jesus was not the
kind of savior that everyone had in mind. He was a different kind of
baby. No prince, although we call him the prince of peace. And certainly
no king, although we call him the king of kings. He was born to regular
working people. Not in Jerusalem. Not to a rabbi. But to Mary and
Joseph. The people of Israel had been waiting more than 500 years for
him. Prophet after prophet had expected him to come and save them.
The last prophet before Jesus came was John the Baptist. John was
just a few years ahead of Jesus, and he warned the people to prepare for
Jesus.
Now, in today’s Gospel from Matthew, we find John in prison. As we
heard last week, John was an extremely outspoken kind of guy, and he had
angered Herod and Herod’s wife. John is in prison, and he hears reports
of this and that, people are talking a good deal about a young man, a
teacher and preacher, who is very different than any they had seen
before. And John, the prophet who came to herald the coming of Christ –
John is not sure what is going on. So he sends word to Jesus, “Are you
the one?”
Is it Advent or is it Christmas? Are we waiting or are we
celebrating? If you’re the one, you’re not exactly what we had in mind.
So John wants to know, “Jesus, are you the One?”
And that is a question for the whole world. We live in a world that
celebrates Christmas, but gives very little thought to what Christmas
is. In a very real sense it is still unthinkable for us to understand
that God came among us, not valuing the wealth and human comforts we
value. God came among us living in a working-class home in an occupied
country, and his idea of saving had nothing to do with taking down the
Roman army.
It is a little like giving birth, and finding out the baby is nothing
like you thought he or she would be. Today, even John the Baptist isn’t
sure. But Jesus has the answer. And it is simple. He tells John’s
followers: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and
the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes
no offense at me.”
The savior of Israel did not come riding on a white steed, taking up
armor against the enemy. Rather he came walking, healing all that came
to him and preaching the good news. And that is John’s answer.
We are an Advent people. We have the great joy of Jesus, the Messiah.
And we have been asked to wait for him to come again. To prepare and to
wait. And from time to time, we will find ourselves asking, “Are you the
One?” This has happened a few times during my life. There was a fellow
named Jim Jones who led people off to live in a commune, and some
thought he was the one. There was a fellow named David Koresh, who said
he was the one, and people went with him to live in some sort of commune
in Waco Texas. There is fellow named Sun Yung Moon, and some say he is
the one.
The truth is, we are tired of waiting. We Christians have been
waiting 2,000 years for Christ to come again. Perhaps we have not always
waited very well, but we have been waiting. And it is normal for us to
want to ask, “Are you the One?” But Jesus told us how to figure it out.
If we think we have found the Christ, we can expect that he would be
healing people in large numbers. We can expect he would be preaching the
good news, and especially among the poor. It is unlikely that he would
instruct his followers to come live with him, probably he would move
around a good deal. In any case, it is not likely that he or she would
be here to meet our expectations of a savior.
Christmas has become popular throughout the world. But not Advent.
Waiting for the unknown is difficult. Celebrating is fun. But
celebrations ring hollow when we don’t know what it is we are
celebrating.
This week I was down with a cold one day, and I have to admit that I
turned on television. I was watching one of those at-home shows, where
they show how to cook and garden and decorate and what not. This
particular one interests me because the show’s host is in her mid-20’s.
She took us through turkeys stuffed with mashed potatoes, to wire mesh
Christmas tree ornaments and table setting with pine cones and bricks
sprayed gold. It was pretty much the celebrating of Christmas without a
reason. But it was television, and I wasn’t expecting much. Then she
said something that woke me up. She said it was important to remember
what Christmas is all about. Great, I thought. We’re going to hear
something about Jesus. But what she said was, “The real meaning of
Christmas is the family dinner.”
Something is lost, something very big is lost, when Christmas is
celebrated without Christ. And when we celebrate Christ, we have to
remember that God gave us what we needed, not what we wanted. God is not
Santa Claus looking at our list of wants. Santa celebrates God, but God
is bigger than that. Santa is just a little part of the celebration.
The real celebration, the true celebration has something to do with
God caring so much for us that he came and lived among us. Not as a
prince but as a healer. Not as a warrior, but a bringer of peace. Jesus
came as someone worth waiting for, the fulfillment of the great
prophecies of old, the prophecies of the Messiah.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be
glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall
blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. Then the eyes of
the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the
lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for
joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the
desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground
springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass
shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be
called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be
for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. “
And if not even fools go astray, there is hope for us all. Amen.
