Sunday Sermonizing: The Advent of Waiting

Life is often about waiting. “Hurry up and wait” is an American credo. We live by it. We have expectations for waiting. We wait for coffee and we wait for chicken sandwiches. We wait for holidays and wait to get married, then wait for vacation and wait for children and grandchildren. We wait for retirement and we wait for our own funerals.

We wait for someday.

Someday when the moment is right, when I have enough money or time or margin. Until then we wait.

Waiting is, indeed, a big deal when it comes to things way more important than coffee and holidays.

Will there be a day when poverty is actually eliminated?

Will there come a time when violence is no longer a part of our experience?

Can we eradicate systemic racism and injustice?

Will the day come when the glory of the Lord fills the earth like the water fills the sea?

It will come.

And we wait for it, while fighting for it.

This is the season we find ourselves. We are in an advent in the middle of an advent.  We wait for the first coming of Christ to deal once and for all with sin and death, through His birth, life, death, and resurrection. It’s happened. We are reminded of the longing this time of year. Simultaneously,  we are waiting for the second coming of Christ when he will right every wrong, wipe every tear, and make everything sad come untrue.

Waiting is important, because waiting means hope. I know at the end of this line, I will get my cup of coffee. In a month it will be Christmas.

And sometime soon - maybe next year, maybe next century, but sometime soon - there will be another advent.

And everything sad will come untrue.

Waiting is good. Waiting is hope. And hope never disappoints.

“In that day, A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!

I, the Lord, am its keeper.”

Isaiah 27:2-3