Advent: Waiting

So this is the first week of Advent. It always seems weird to me that churches that do not hold to the whole of the calendar still use Advent. But that is a blog for another day. Advent means coming. It is the season when we eagerly anticipate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. That means that it is a season of waiting.

Waiting is not something that I think we do well in America. We have self-checkout lines so we don't have to wait for other people. We have cell phones which instantly connect us to the entire world. The news can't even wait to get their facts straight half the time with breaking news. We have microwaves and fast lanes on the highway. We have express checkout. Amazon now has one hour delivery in certain cities. Just in case two day shipping wasn't fast enough.

We are saturated by the instantaneous. It is no wonder that this idea of waiting is so foreign to us. But it's interesting because this ends up crossing over into what songs we choose for services the first week of Advent. See this is the time when we anticipate Jesus. We should be singing songs about asking Jesus to come near. Why sing Oh Come, Oh Come, Emanuel instead of Silent Night?

Jesus isn't here yet.

Let me tell you a story about an old guy. See this guy was about 75 and God told him that though he was old, he would have a son. God told him that he would make him the father of nations. Now I don't know about you, but at 75 I might be like. 'Ok, but you better do it quick I'm not getting any younger.'

So what does God do? Well he tells this old guy that for this to happen he has to give up everything he knows and move. Is there a destination? Not really. God says go. One night on this journey God takes him outside and tells him that he will have descendants like the stars in the sky. Cool! But this guy is still 75 and not getting any younger.

Well God keeps reminding this guy of his promise. Years pass and this guy is now 99. That’s right it has been almost twenty-five years! God comes to him again (this time as three men) and tells him that this time next year he will have a son. Here's the thing. This guy’s wife, yeah, she's no spring chicken. She is 89. So of course when she hears this she laughs at it. And denies it.

I'm going to stop right here.

I could go on, but that is not the point this week. See I want you to really think about this. Abram waited 25 years to have a son. I just turned 29. So basically he waited my entire life to have a promise fulfilled. A promise that meant he would be a father when he should have already had grandchildren. (Don't tell me that people lived longer. The text tells us they were old. Over and over and over again.) See Abram knew this too. That’s why he tried to do things his way.

So why did God make him wait so long? Honestly, I am not entirely sure. I could give you reasons like, so it would be a miracle. Or because God's timing is perfect. However, I think that maybe it was glimpse at the waiting that Israel would have to go through.

Abraham's story is the story of Advent.

You know that break in your bible between the Old and New Testament? Yeah, that is a break of 500 years. See at the end of the Old Testament Israel is promised a savior who will come and put things right for them. Then God goes silent. If you read intertestamental books you find that Israel tried to do it on their own. There were people claiming to be the Messiah, but they died. And stayed dead. Something better was coming.

This is the story of Advent. It is a story of waiting. This is why we should sing Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel. It reminds us of the story of humanity. It reminds us that our time is not God's time. We wait because Israel had to wait. We wait because it reminds us that we are still waiting. We are waiting for Jesus to return. That is why we wait at Advent.

One last story.

When I was younger I wanted to grow up, get married and have kids. Well I didn't really want to wait and I ended up chasing after girls as a teenager. One summer a young pastor came to me and told me to chill out. Actually he said to me that if was older God would strike me dead for misusing my gifts to get girls. Needless to say that got my attention. What he also said was that if I waited God would provide me a wife.

Well I grew up and got married. God had fulfilled his promise. We got pregnant. Another promise fulfilled. Here's the thing though. We had a miscarriage. About a year and a half later my (now) ex-wife had an affair. I remember thinking that God had abandoned me.

Was this not the promise that God had made to me? Why did things fail? Well in the aftermath of that I began to here another promise.

There is something better coming.

I wasn't sure exactly what that meant. I didn't know exactly how that would play out. I again had to wait. I'm still waiting for the fulfillment of that. Yes, God has provided an amazing woman of God. But we are not husband and wife. I must still wait. But here is the difference; I know that God WILL keep His promises.

May Advent remind you to wait on the Lord. May the wait draw you closer to your creator. May you remember that we still wait for Jesus return. And may God bless you in His timing.

Amen!