Advent IV, C |
St James’, Peace River |
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The waiting is almost over. If you have children in your house like we do, you’ve probably already had to count the sleeps, or whatever indication you use to measure the time till December 25th. Here in church, the Advent wreath helps us to mark time, but today we’ve completed the circle: all four candles are burning, and we know we only have to wait for the central Christ candle to blaze out on Christmas night like that star the wise men followed. Advent is a season of waiting. What have you been waiting for? There are all the shared human anticipations that are a part of our Christmas culture. Some of us have been waiting to go on a trip, others waiting for company to arrive or family to come home. We’ve been waiting for school to end and holidays to start, waiting for the office party to come or perhaps waiting for it to go! Waiting to see what good things come out of the oven, waiting for someone else to write the Christmas letter so the cards could go out in the mail… And still waiting, for the surprises that pile up under the tree, and for the wonder of a day when God’s love for us will shine through in so many ways. As Christians, we’ve been waiting in other ways. Yes, I know some of you have been waiting for the rector to pick Christmas carols instead of hymns! But as we’ve held back from telling the full story just yet, we’ve found ourselves waiting with the people of Israel to see what the fulfilment of God’s promises will look like; waiting with John the Baptist for God’s grace to meet our repentance; waiting with Mary for that baby to arrive. I wonder, though, why we think Advent is about US waiting for GOD. What would happen if we turned that around? Might it be that Advent asks us to recognize the ways in which God waits? What would God have to wait for anyway? Below the surface, I think a lot of the Christmas story is about God waiting for us. One thing that shines through the story of Israel is their awareness of God’s tremendous patience. God is the one who waits for us to grow up, to come to our senses, to turn around, to come back to where we belong. God waits for the people who will listen to him. Someone once suggested that bush that Moses saw might have been waiting a long time. Who stops to notice a burning bush? But Moses stopped, and saw that it wasn’t being burned up. And God knew that here was someone who would watch, and listen. God also had a long wait for his people to grasp some of the great truths about who their God was - not just a totem for their one tiny culture, but a God who was working through them to bring light to the whole world. Not a God who struck bargains - do this for me, and I’ll do that for you - but a God who would be there no matter what, to be loved for his own sake just as he loves us for ours. And then God had a long wait for someone to work with him on the most amazing thing he’s ever done. God wanted to be here in this world along with us, to be one of us. But you know how that works - God couldn’t just zap himself into human form, that would just be dressing up. For God to really be one of us, a woman had to say “Yes,” and after many long centuries, Mary did. Even then there was more waiting, nine months or so, it doesn’t happen overnight! Imagine waiting to be born, waiting to discover what it’s like to breathe, to be held, to feed, to grow. God did that. So you see, this Christmas story is as much about God waiting for us as it is about us waiting for God. Does that affect how we experience the story? I think it does. If we think only about our own waiting, then we are thinking about only our own needs. Some of those needs are selfish, but many of them are true - we NEED God in some pretty deep ways, most of all in order simply to be our true selves. And so we wait, and prepare, for God to come into our lives once again. But what is God waiting for? In the story as we know it, God’s waiting wasn’t the needy kind, it was the generous kind, waiting for us to catch up and be present, waiting for us to understand, waiting for us to be ready to work together with God. And I think that tremendous patience that God has is still there. In this Advent season, God has been waiting for us just like he waited for the people of Israel, and for Mary. Waiting for the penny to drop with us, for us to see just what God is up to. Waiting for us to say “yes”, we want to be part of that. Waiting for you and me to make the creative choice, the choice no one but you can make; to do the thing no one but you can do. In a few short days our lives are going to be dominated by presents - the gifts we give to and receive from one another, but underlying them is another kind of “presence”, the gift God gives to us. Our waiting will be over, Advent will give way to Christmas, we will know God among us once again. We still need to ask, What are we giving to God? How can we be more fully present to God? What is God waiting for from us, and how can we do it? Mary’s song gives us a pretty good sketch of what God is waiting for. The mercy and the strength of God made manifest; the mighty cast down, the humble lifted high; the hungry filled, the rich sent away to learn what hunger is. God has already done all this, but God is also waiting for us to be part of the plan. Mary’s song is a vision of what life is like when God truly comes to live with us, not just once upon a time but forever. But just like then, God is still waiting for a “yes” - waiting for us to say, we want to be part of this, we want life to be like this, we want you to come and live here. This is what the other side of Christmas is about. We don’t have to keep God waiting any longer. God’s made a commitment to us - let’s offer something back and make room. Room in our hearts, room at the inn, room in our world for the one who is waiting and longing to be with us.
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