1 Thess 3: 9-13; Luke 21: 25-36     Waiting in Hope      DC      Nov. 27/05

1. This morning we begin our Advent waiting.  There are many different kinds of waiting, aren?t there?  If you were asked to act out waiting ? how would you choose to do it?  Would it be hand on hip, foot-tapping, eyes purposefully focused on your watch?  Would it be arms lovingly extended to enfold a longed for babe, not yet ready to be born?  Would it be head down in despair, awaiting the dreaded news of a beloved?s death?  Whether awaiting bad news or good, a friend?s arrival, or a dreaded exam, we are well accustomed to waiting.  Our question to our scriptures this morning, ?Are there resources of our faith, that could make waiting different for us this Advent??

2. In 1 Thessalonians, our first resource is to wait with love.  The people are in desperate times and disheartened because Jesus has not yet returned ? Paul is worried about them. Likely from what he writes, there are the usual difficulties of relationship of a community in crisis.  Paul begins with his love for them.  ?How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we feel before our God because of you??  His prayer for them, ?May God make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all as my love abounds for you.  How can they do that?  A Family Circus cartoon shows Mother walking down the street with all the kids, all asking a million questions and trying to get her attention.  She appears cool, collected, enjoying the outing.  Next frame, they meet a neighbour.  With a quizzical look he asks, ?How do you divide your love among so many children??  Mother laughs, ?I don?t divide it, I multiply it!?  That?s the wonder of love Paul was talking about.  With God?s help love is a renewable resource ? with no limits.

3. In Luke, we?re encouraged to wait with anticipation.  Something new is happening.  In the turmoil of nature, in the turmoil of the political situation, the people wanted to believe that this would be the final difficulty before Jesus returned with power.  Jesus said, ?You see the signs of nature ? like leaves on the fig tree, and you know that spring is coming.  Similarly watch for God at work.  That didn?t happen with the terror, the glorious power that this passage paints.  But it did come in the surprising power of the Holy Spirit to change lives.

4. Wait with honesty.  You may remember Job and what a fine example he is of honest suffering.  He howled he yowled, he cried!  He knew God could take it.  In fact it was a necessary part of his healing.  A man recently in an accident that left him quadriplegic is in the midst of a time of great darkness.  He is angry at everyone and everything, including God.  He makes good and sure we know it.  For months he railed and raged.  But recently, now that he feels well heard, something is beginning to change.  Last week when asked what he?d like included in our prayer, he took a deep breath and muttered, ?I guess we?d better ask God to help me accept my limitations.?  With laughter we reminded ourselves that we believed in miracles and asked God for acceptance that had previously seemed so impossible to even hope for.  Waiting for this young man was an honest, active struggle to make sense of an impossible situation.  Then, like Job, he entered holy ground, where new possibilities can happen.

5. Wait with confidence, says our Psalm writer.   Not just struggling to understand and accept, but to grow in a situation of intense darkness.  With confidence that God will enable that growth.  God?s presence is accepted; God?s leading is sought.  We find healing and growth, sometimes in counseling, sometimes in confession.  Sometimes we find it by seeing God in the familiar face of one who cares.

6. Our Psalm also encourages us to be actively involved in our waiting.  Let me tell you one dear friend?s experience of this Psalm.  In her Junior High years, she had taken her turn, quite involuntarily of course, at being on the outs with ?the in group? at school.  She had been cruelly excluded, accused of things she?d never do, and every day at school had been an agony of ridicule and pain.  She was such a sensitive youth.  A loving family and several supportive friends had not been enough to save her from trying to take her life, thinking only of not feeling the intense pain from the cruel taunts and accusations.  Her friends and family never deserted her and encouraged her to get the help needed.  She began the long road back.  But she was still plagued with shame and now guilt for what she?d done.  Her close friends tried to understand, but they had never felt as she, and their faith would say her actions were a sin.  She seemed to see the accusation in their eyes.  So although part of her healed, and she promised not to take such drastic action again, she lived constantly with the pain of low self worth and what seemed to her failure.

Five years later at a large gathering of UC youth from across Canada, the home group she had found so supportive and so much fun were talking about the issue of teenage suicide.  They couldn?t see why anyone would do such a thing.  To risk hurting those they loved and loved them.  She sat unusually quiet, while every fiber of her being wanted to scream, ?You don?t understand.?  But she couldn?t risk loosing these growing friendships.  Her home group leader gently questioned her about her silence.  Was there something she wanted to say?  With a deep breath, she summoned up her courage, and began the story of her whole painful experience.  To her amazement the faces stayed friendly, open, understanding, accepting.  They asked some questions, but only to better understand.  She felt cared for, and as though they now better understood what had happened for her and what might happen for others.  At the end, she needed some time by herself, and headed for the garden where she?d felt safe before, and sat to think and pray.

Suddenly a grin began to turn up the corners of her mouth.  ?I will choose another therapy than moping!? she shouted to no one in particular and ran over to rejoin her group.  Her rising was a very significant act.  It was her rejoining life.  It would not have been possible without her active waiting over the years ? struggling with thoughts and feelings, wrestling with what she believed about herself, about God, about others.  It would not have been possible without this last very clear embodiment of God in the dear familiar faces of those who cared.  It was possible because of her creative, active waiting in the darkness.

7. So our waiting this Advent can be different!  There are resources of our faith that allow us to wait with hope.  When we wait with love, when we wait with honesty, when we wait actively involved in our healing and anticipating with confidence that God is indeed doing a new thing, we too create newness.  We dare to hope, knowing that newness will come.  We trust the promise that when we wait earnestly seeking love, New Life, healing, and reconciliation, God indeed generously fills our need.  May these gifts be born in you this Advent.