Ready Or Not!
Posted on Dec 07, 2014 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen
Waiting is so hard, isn’t it? I am not a patient person and I don’t like to wait for things, not even good things. Coming home from Israel was a real eye opener for me as to how bad I am at waiting. Our last day in Israel was a long day. It was a Sunday, and since we wanted to attend worship at Redeemer Lutheran in Old Jerusalem, we needed to be out of room by 8:15 AM. Following worship, we spent the rest of the day walking all over Old Jerusalem. In fact, according to Jill’s Fitbit, we walked almost eight miles that day. Exhausted, we returned to the hotel about 6:00 where we caught our bus to the airport. When we arrived at the airport, we had a five-hour wait for our flight to Brussels, which took another five hours. Then, after waiting through a 4 ½ hour layover in Brussels, we took our 9 ½ hour flight to Newark. Then we had to wait through a 2 ½ layover in Newark, before we caught our final flight back to KC, which took another 3 ½ hours. Ninety minutes later, at about 7:15 PM Central Time, we pulled into our driveway to see this (have picture of kids in front of the welcome home sign). Some 43 hours after we left our hotel room Sunday morning in Jerusalem, we arrived home. There were many times during that period of time that I thought we would never get home, particularly on that 9 ½ flight to Newark that felt like it would never end. As I said before, when that last day of our trip arrived, I really wasn’t ready to leave Israel, but that day did come and the wait to get home was hard. And although there were times on those long flights when I just couldn’t wait anymore, I knew there were adorable grandkids waiting for us and I knew there was our own bed waiting for us, and I knew the best was yet to come.
In many ways, waiting for Christmas is a lot like that long trip home, it seems like it will never get here. I was not ready to leave Israel, but that last day finally arrived and I had to leave. And when it was finally time to leave, I wanted to get home. I am in no hurry to rush my life away, but I do like Christmas and I can;t wait for it to get here. I like the celebrations. I like giving gifts to people, especially to my family. I like the music and the festive atmosphere that seems to come with Christmas, but I also know, I am not ready for it yet. In the next two weeks, Jill and I have two Christmas dinners at our home and we are not ready. We have shopping to do, but we don’t seem to have much time to do it. It is our tradition to make lots of Christmas cookies and homemade caramel corn, but it doesn’t seem to be happening, and yet, I know, whether I am ready for it, or not, Christmas will come. And that is the message that both Isaiah and Mark offer us today, because ready or not, Christmas will come in just 18 days and more importantly whether you are ready are not, Christ will come again.
The Gospel of Mark was the first Gospel written. In fact, before Mark wrote his gospel, the genre of a “Gospel” had not been created, yet. Mark was the first to use the term gospel, or “evangel,” which means good news,” or “glad tidings,” for the Christian community. Always before, the term was only used for sharing good news about the Emperor. For Mark, his purpose of telling this story was to make sure the world new that there was a new era beginning. This new era was time and place in which God has entered human history in an unprecedented way. This was good news: the kingdom of God has dawned! But, it was not quite complete, so, the world would have to wait.
And, while the world waits, as you heard me say last week, and you heard Isaiah proclaim his morning, God’s children are to continue to prepare the way for his return. John, cleared the way for Jesus, and Jesus cleared the way for us, and now we are called to make straight the paths once again for Jesus.
Now, you may be wondering, why do we need to do this? Because as Isaiah announced whether we are ready or not, God intends to visit us again and God has instructed us to prepare his way. God didn’t say, "Tell the people to get ready and when they have done so, I will come to them.” No, God said, "Prepare the way! I am coming to my people (whether they are ready or not)."
God is coming to us! This is fantastic news! So, what can we do to get ready? John says we should confess our sins and get baptized. During his ministry, Jesus added to this command and he told his followers that they ought to also, "believe in the good news!" (Mark 1:15).
So, here we are, waiting for that time to come. Oh, we know December 25 will be here in 18 days, and then we will celebrate the 2000 year-old birth of Jesus, but this Season of Advent is not just about waiting to celebrate something that happened 2000 years ago, it is also about waiting for that time when Jesus will come again. For we know God will come and fulfill all of God's promises, but while we wait, we ought to live as though we really believe it. Knowing he is going to return ought to cause us to live differently. Because when Christ comes again, as we heard last week, he will come and call his people to himself. The question today, on this second Sunday of Advent, is, are we living as believers are called to live and are we preparing his way? I get excited thinking about Jesus’ return, but to be honest, I do get tired of waiting, don’t you?
Have you ever played “Hide & Seek?” I used to play it a lot as a kid, but then I hadn’t really played it for a long time until recently. You see my 3-year old granddaughter loves to play it and since her and her family are living with us for the next several weeks until there new house is finished later next month, I play it about every day right now. But I discovered something about the game that I had never thought about before. As I have played this game with Addi, I realized that there really is no great joy in hiding, or seeking the person you are looking for. In fact those two activities can be a little boring and time consuming, and requite a lot of waiting time. No, the real joy is experience you feel when you find the person, or when you are found. You see, Addi will be hiding, well, you can see her, but she thinks you can’t, and there is no laughter or excitement until you suddenly say, “I found you,” at which time she shrieks and jumps up and down and laughs.
I think that is a lot how we “play” with God. We think he can’t see us. We think we are hiding from him. We think he can’t see the things we do, or don’t do, but the truth is he sees everything we do and hears everything we say. And, whether we are ready or not, when he returns, he will find us and when he does, we will experience great joy. Like my little granddaughter does when I find her, I imagine when that time comes there will be laughter and much jumping up and down with joy.
So this Advent season, let us prepare ourselves to live differently. Let’s live, not wondering if Christ will come again. No, let’s live knowing Christ is coming, in fact, he is on his way and be assured that when he arrives, nothing will keep him from finding you and claiming you. Amen.