Watching
and Waiting
In
the season of Advent, Christians wait.
We wait to remember and celebrate the child born in a manger long ago,
and we wait expectantly for the Son of God to return at the end of time. We wait and we watch—we live sometime “in
between” the coming of God in history, the birth of the savior “in the city of
David” and the coming that is God’s final return, “that day or hour that no one
knows”. Caught in the tension between
the already and the ‘not yet’, we are called to watch and wait with great
longing. Watching, what is
watching? In our culture most people
associate the word “watch” with things like television and films. But 99% of Television is about distraction
and escapism. The biblical notion of
watch means to hope and to know a wonderful life is happening under our noses
even though we may not see it with our eyes. And what about waiting? Andy Rooney may have spoken for all of us
when he said, “Any line you choose to
stand in during your life will usually turn out to be the slowest.” We do not like to wait. So we choose McDonald’s. So we grumble in line at the Post
Office. Most of our culture is designed
so that we do not have to wait. Let us
hear again Isaiah’s strange and symbolic vision.
In days to come the mountain of the
Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains,… all the
nations shall stream to it. …For out of Zion shall go forth… the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many
peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more.
When I read Isaiah I feel discouraged because
I don’t know if I have the faith to take Isaiah literally or the strength to
wait and watch for peace. The situation
in the Middle East has gone from bad to worse even in the past few years. In this fracture and fragmentation, who in
their right mind would think that nations and peoples will flow to Jerusalem? But
we all have a deep longing to see swords beaten into plowshares and spears into
pruning hooks. We each have a deep
hunger to see some sacred place lifted as holy.
We all have a deep passion for peoples to come together. Yes, and we have a deep longing for the end
of violence. We long for the day when
our children will not learn to make war.
And I believe that this deep longing, this passion, this hunger comes
from God and God alone. God calls us and God needs us to walk with that longing in our
hearts.
We
are often asked why don’t we skip Advent.
After all Advent is all about this deep and painful longing. Why don’t we throw “twinkly” lights all over
the church and put up red ribbons the day after Thanksgiving? Why aren’t we singing Christmas carols
instead of that sad tune, O come, O come Emmanuel. There is a reason, and God is more realistic
that we are at times because God calls us to wait and watch and to feel the
pain of longing.
But
the world has a different answer:
Armageddon. The world is not about longing deeply, but about fearing
fatalistically. We are fearful about
global warming bringing about such changes in the climate that most animal and
human life will die off. We worry about
terrorists releasing a deadly strain of anthrax that becomes a pandemic. We worry about suitcase sized nuclear bombs
lost in the old Soviet Union turning up and exploded in our major cities. And we worry about natural disasters like
perfect storms, earthquakes that are a number 10 and even being struck by an
asteroid. We worry about Armageddon, and
not only once in a while, but maybe even every day.
So
what are the alternatives: Zion or Armageddon? Zion is the vision of Isaiah; Armageddon the
vision of our destructive world. The
fear of Armageddon forces us to view salvation as something just for
individuals. Armageddon forces us to
keep to ourselves and to give up on the rest of the world that is on its way to
hell in a hand basket anyway. But the vision
of Isaiah, Zion, assumes that God the Creator is still creating and shaping
countries and nations through faithful human beings. From the Zion point of view we are not
created to be spectators or those who observe from the sidelines. We have a crucial role in God’s desire to
redeem the world—the world of people who walk streets, clerks in shoe stores, who
run for public office, who employ workers in their firms, and make public
policy. God needs us.
We
are teetering between these two possible futures. But reading the whole Bible provides little
doubt about God’s desire: it is the
redemption of the human family and human society. Ezekiel speaks the heart of God when he
echoes the divine voice saying: “I have not pleasure in the death of
anyone…Turn, then, and live. God needs us.
At one level the church must preach and teach this vision, and support
those groups and individuals who give their lives to it. We are called to offer it as an alternative
to the war and violence we see today in the daily papers, on the news, in
films, and on the television. We are to
be out there and to be political.
But at another level the vision is
not only about politics and the rest of the world, it is about what God intends
for us right here at Nativity. It is
God’s wish our Church family grow stronger, healthier and happier—and larger. God’s wish to bring people together who were
scattered is about us. God’s wish to
bring justice between nations is about us.
God’s wish that we beat our
swords in plowshares is about us. And God’s wish that we walk in this light of
the Lord is about us.
God’s wish is not something God has
planned for the end of the world as if Isaiah foretells the future, as if this
vision of peace is something we can escape into or fantasize about. God intended the vision in Isaiah’s day to
change things then, and God intends this vision to change things today. God intends to change things today. God intends that we be shocked into seeing,
surprised, inspired into seeing because our great problem is that we fail to
see. God’s wish is that we grow in
respect of one another, we grow in peace with one another and that loving this
respect and peace we will work to transform the world around us into a more
peaceful and respectful home.
O God the author of
Peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is
perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants in all assaults of our
enemies; that we, surely trust in your defense, may not fear the power of any
adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen