Waiting

This sermon was preached by Craig Simenson

Isaiah 35:1-10 and Matthew 11:2-11

Puddles this morning, but no snow and ice yet. Still, things are changing underneath our feet these days. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight! This is more or less John the prophet’s refrain. We heard the words last Sunday: One who is more powerful than I is coming after me. The one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And, it’s true… looking around recently, in only the past couple weeks, some things in our everyday worlds already seem to be changing. Maybe not with the intensity of John’s fire, but there are little colored lights already strung, “burning,” in the windows and along fence lines. Right in front of us and by our side – and maybe within us, too – there are preparations being made for what is to come in the weeks ahead.

But… we are not quite there yet.

Interestingly, this is exactly where the church calendar begins. Not with a ball dropping or champagne bubbling and a toast, not with noisemakers or the party hats with those little elastic strings, not with a shower of confetti or a college football extravaganza. But with Advent, a season marked more by waiting than by celebration of a new year. A season where the party is not quite here yet. Where instead we’re left to prepare ourselves for what is still to come.

Quite naturally it seems, our rituals this time of year most often revolve around our sense of expectation. Where we’re left waiting for the next candle to be lit on the Advent wreath: Hope, Peace, Joy… Waiting for the next line of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” or maybe “Come now. Come, O Lord Jesus,” whatever the case might be. Waiting for the next little door to be opened on the Advent calendar (hopefully, to some really good chocolate). Left waiting for the day that is close enough but still far away.

And yet, this church season of waiting—this season of what is still to come is, in many ways, a different kind of experience than much of what is collecting around us in our everyday worlds now. Like those songs already playing in the supermarket that we can’t help but sing along to (even if only in our heads, even if we don’t want to). Personally, I so very much look forward to “rockin’ around the Christmas tree.” I just don’t think I’m quite ready yet.

Yes, it’s true… our world, like us, has a hard time waiting. Maybe, it’s because, at its heart, waiting is a somewhat risky practice. After all, we may well be waiting for something that will not come. And if one waits long enough, we might even start questioning what it is we were getting ready for in the first place.

So the disciples of John the prophet, John the baptizer, come to ask Jesus their question:

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?

Jesus turns their question around though. With the answers that apparently barely need to be spoken, with answers that they apparently already know: Go and tell [about]… what you hear and see.

Jesus turns our questions around, and keeps turning them—so that we might see ourselves more clearly: Who are you waiting for anyway? And what did you go out into the wilderness to look at?

Are you the one who is to come?, they ask him. As if the one they are speaking to, this Jesus, is not already there in front of them.

Perhaps it barely needs to be said by me. More than likely, you already know – that in all of our preparations of this season – in the planning and plane tickets, in the searching and shopping for those perfect gifts – we’re likely to be carried away into the season that isn’t quite here yet. And, in this, it seems that we are in real danger of losing sight of the wonders of this waiting season. In this, it seems we risk forgetting not only what set us out into this wilderness to begin with, but also the holy highway unfurling out before us in everything we hear and see and touch in these waiting moments. We risk losing the chance to truly hold our expectations, aspirations and intentions up for examination:

Who are we waiting for anyway? Year after year, who are we looking for out in this Advent wilderness? And will we know it when it is standing right here in front of us already?

To recognize the way, we not only need to look to where it leads, but also pay attention to the steps as we walk them. And we need to remain present to the ones who are walking beside us—in a wilderness changing underneath our feet.

The one who is still yet to come may very well already be right here in front of us. Waiting with us for the light and new birth to come. Traveling this same highway. Wide open to hear and see and touch all that is already present on this still-darkening road. Waiting in wonder for the illumination of fire and Spirit that is still yet to come.