Waiting

If I could use only one word to describe the first two days of my recent trip to the Holy Land, that word would be "waiting." I waited with anticipation for the evening when my flight would leave for Israel. I waited at the airport to check in, to go through security, and to board my flight. I waited in my seat more than 10 hours as the Boeing 777 crossed the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea en route to Tel Aviv over-night. And because of a 7-hour time difference between Israel and my home, my over-night flight actually arrived in the early evening - meaning that I would have to wait over-night again (this time in a hotel) before I could visit any of the sites on our itinerary. 

The first stop on our Holy Land tour was the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem - the traditional site of Jesus' birth. Our tour guide warned us that we would have to wait in line for a long time to see the spot where Jesus was born, even though we were one of the first groups to arrive at the Church that morning. The reason for this wait? Each of the three religious communities which shares responsibility for the site (the Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Churches) had its own allotted time for daily worship there before the Grotto of the Nativity would be opened to the public. So we waited some more. 

Pilgrims Wait to Enter the Grotto of the Nativity     

I wasn't very patient as I waited for the Grotto to be opened, and neither were many of the tourists around me. Two tour guides even got into a heated argument about which group should enter the Grotto first. It would have served us well to have read an Advent sermon my father wrote about waiting. He said, "Waiting is so very foreign to us today. We live in the fast lane. We want things to happen instantly. The idea of delayed gratification of our needs or desires is just not acceptable to us. We live in a world of fast food and condensed books. People go to a counselor with deep-seated problems of long-standing and want a quick solution with one session and a few pills.

By buying into this modern trend we do ourselves a disservice, because waiting is an important and potentially positive part of life. Precious insights, vital discoveries, and new resources of strength can come from the proper kind of waiting. We live by 'clock time.' The years are divided into months, the months into days, the days into minutes. But if we want to get in step with God we must realize that God is not bound by the clock or the calendar. Waiting helps us get synchronized with God. Waiting put us on God's time. God acts in the fullness of time, at the right time. Quiet but active waiting puts us in touch with what God is doing and when God is doing it.

Many years before the birth of Jesus, the Old Testament prophets wrote about waiting for a deliverer who would be like a light for a darkened world. The people to whom the prophets spoke were weary with impatience. They wanted the Messiah now. They wanted God to be on their clock. Hundreds of years went by, and all God said was, 'Wait.' So anxious were they for the Messiah that the masses tried to crown John the Baptist as Messiah when he arrived on the scene. Again, God's message was 'wait.'

In our impatience to solve our own problems or gratify our own desires, we too try to confer messiahship on persons or institutions or philosophies that ultimately turn out to be false messiahs. We can't wait for God's salvation, and so we look to the President of the United States to solve our problems, or to government in general, or to material gain, or to the latest self-improvement fad.

For centuries, the People of God waited for deliverance, chasing here or there after false messiahs, 'but when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman ...'  Advent is a time to remind ourselves that God is in charge, and he knows what he's doing. In order to be so reminded, we must wait for God to act and for God to call us to action. 

Our tendency at this time of the year is to rush too quickly to the manger. Just as the world rushes into Christmas shortly after Halloween, so we follow suit. Not many of us like the slow Advent hymns; let's start right in with festive Christmas carols! And yet the wisdom of the ages tells us to wait. Don't pull out all the stops just yet. But why? What's the value in waiting? The prophet Isaiah counsels us that there is great wisdom in waiting for the Lord. When we wait on the Lord, we act not in the frail efforts of our own strength, but in the mighty power of the Lord's strength. When we wait on the Lord, we receive not the imperfect results of our own hands, but the good and perfect result of God's hand.

Don't rush to the manger too quickly this season. Wait. Stop, look, and listen to the people and events around you. Where is Christ speaking to you? Pray and read the Bible in the quietness of his presence. What is he saying to you? Don't rush to the manger. There are precious experiences along the way that should be savored, experiences through which God can prepare us to meet the Christ."

After waiting so long to enter the Grotto of the Nativity, I was rushed to (and past) the spot where Jesus was said to have been born, pausing just long enough to have my picture taken there. I didn't encounter Jesus at that hectic spot. I met him in the days that followed in the faces and voices of fellow travelers who came to the Holy Land to meet him just as I had.   

From: "Waiting"

Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11, 28-31   

Preached at Paoli U.M. Church