Advent Lutheran Church

"God Keeps Creating - In You! (Advent I Midweek)"

            Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus.  Amen.

            The season of Advent has been called “the season of creative waiting.”  Creative, we like.  Waiting, no.

            Last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, was “Black Friday,” traditionally the busiest retail shopping day of the year.  Two days ago, Monday, was supposed to be “Cyber Monday,” the day of the heaviest internet shopping traffic.  When I heard that prediction on Sunday night, I thought, “Man you’d have to be crazy to go online on Monday.  Waaaaay too much traffic.  Only an idiot would try to order something over the internet.”

            So, of course, when did I go online to order a Christmas gift?  Monday night.

            I got to the website of the business I was looking for, was amazed at how quickly I was able to complete the five pages it took to place an order, and then finally brought my cursor to the icon that said, “Place Order Here.”  I clicked it, and my screen froze.

            There was a helpful customer service number to call, so I did.  I was connected to someone who obviously had been hired only for the holiday rush, and who promptly put me on hold.  For 10 minutes.  I had plenty of time to realize that 10 minutes isn’t a terribly long period of time, unless you happen to be holding a phone, waiting.  Finally, the problem was resolved and my order was placed, but as I was waiting I remembered a quote from Dan Quisenberry, a relief pitcher for the Royals back in the ‘80s who, during one of the Royals’ many slumps, said, “The future is a lot like the present, only a whole lot longer.”

            Waiting.  I’m not very good at it, and most people I know aren’t very good at it.  But creative waiting seem to be a basic part of God’s plan for us. 

            The people of Israel spent an insufferably long period of time in bondage in Egypt, waiting.  But during that time they realized that the real source of their freedom was not in themselves or their own ingenuity, but in the God who had called them to be his own people. 

After freedom the people waited for 40 years in the wilderness, wandering on their way to the Promised Land.  But during that time they grew from being 12 loosely connected tribes to being a single and solid, fiercely independent people who had learned to rely only on God. 

Fast-forward 600 years, and the people of Israel were again in bondage to a great world power, Babylon this time, and were carted off to a distant land in something called The Exile.  During this time of waiting, they would have to be sustained by visions, like this one from the Prophet Isaiah, visions of a future that was very different from the challenges and difficulties of the present. 

Waiting.  Our high-speed society almost resents the very idea of it, but it seems to be part of God’s slow-speed plan for our benefit.  And that raises a couple of key questions for you and me during this first full week in the new season of Advent.  And it might be wise to ask these questions with our loved ones, because our loved ones can often see things in and about us that we cannot see ourselves:

Have you slowed down long enough to, as the Bible puts it, “Be still, and know that God is God?”  How might God be using this time of waiting to continue creating in your life?  Perhaps God is using this time to send Christ to be a sustaining presence in your life, that you might have new hope in a new tomorrow.  Perhaps God is using this time to send Christ to be a healing presence in your life, that you might know a wholeness that might not have come to you in any other way.  Perhaps God is using this time to send Christ to be a shaping presence in your life, giving you the identity of a stronger, more faithful disciple.

One thing we know for sure: God doesn’t waste anything, so how is God using this season of waiting to continue creating in you?

Amen.