Tag Archives: waiting

Advent 9: Expectation

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Our dog, Shiloh, loved treats. He needed them, so he thought, before eating his regular food. He whined. He danced around. He nudged us. And he watched.  When we told him to sit and wait, he sat and waited. But his eyes never left our hands. He watched.

When we walked into the laundry room where we kept the treats, he came to the doorway. When we closed the door, because it is also a bathroom, he laid down, nose pressed to the door. When he heard movement, he jumped back up.

At those times, Shiloh lived in expectation. He watched and waited with every part of his body.

Anna was a prophetess. In no way was she like Shiloh, except in this: she lived with her heart waiting. She lived every day at the temple, she spent all her time in prayer and fasting. And so, when the six-week-old Jesus showed up, she was there.

84 years old.

Temple all the time.

Saw Jesus once.

But once was enough for her. Luke says of her, “She continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

But I bet she kept going to the temple until the day she died. Now with news of Hope.

(Luke 2:36-38)

Advent 3: Silenced

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Zechariah was doing what he was supposed to do. He was a priest in Israel. He was at the temple for his annual season of work. On this particular day, he was feeling pretty proud, in a humble sort of way. On this day, he was at the pinnacle of his religious career.

There was an altar of incense in the temple in Jerusalem. Lots were drawn among the priests each day for the privilege of going in and burning the incense. It was a once in a lifetime event. And some people never got the chance. Today Zechariah won.

And Z is in there, in front of the altar, in the geographic representation of the presence of God and suddenly, an angel.

The angel says that Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, will get pregnant, long after it ought to be possible.

Zechariah is in THE holy place. He sees an angel. He clearly hears a message of hope. His response is, “How will I know?”

Of course, he wasn’t saying “How will I know she’s pregnant?” Duh. That was obvious–or would be. No, I think what he was saying was, “How will I know, how can I be sure, that you are telling the truth, that you will do this amazing thing? How do I know that you really are going to work this time? How can I know that you are talking to me?”

When the message that he hoped for came, he was pretty unconvinced that it could actually happen. And for the next several months (at least nine) he couldn’t talk. The angel said so.

That’s how I am. Tell me something, and I’ll say, “really?” People should slap me. But when the thing I’m hoping for is promised, I still wonder, I still think, “This couldn’t be an angel, not really.” I couldn’t be happy. God couldn’t be really planning to work in and through me, could He?”

And so we are in a place of not being able to talk. Of being stuck in our disbelief, our uncertainty. Even after we see God starting to move, we can’t talk.

But the truth? Miracles happen.

Advent 1: Empty

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When people think of the Christmas story, they often go to the book of Luke in the Bible. Years of hearing Linus recite the story of the shepherds put the words of Luke in people’s hearts. And for some people, it isn’t Christmas until they hear Linus.

And they wait with great anticipation. They check the listings. They clear their schedules. Even though they can watch the videotape over and over again, they wait eagerly for the coming of the “Charlie Brown Christmas.”

If you are like those people, then Luke wrote about you. He wrote about that kind of anticipation, that kind of looking forward, that kind of longing.

For the next 25 days, we’ll look at those people, at that kind of longing.

And we’ll start with Elizabeth and Zechariah in Luke 1.

***

Elizabeth and Zechariah were righteous, blameless…and barren.

They were comparatively older. They wanted a baby. If she had visited a fertility specialist, the response would have been, “It would take a miracle.”

It wasn’t right, somehow. E and Z knew in their hearts, “We do everything right, we do everything we think that God is wanting us to do and….nothing.” He was even part of the staff of the temple, going up to Jerusalem on a regular basis to take his turn serving God.

Did they ever wonder, “Why bother?”

Lots of people think that about church, about being moral, about being good.

  • “What good does it do me?”
  • “I’ve been good for a week, and nothing happened.”
  • “I’ve been good all year, and I still got coal in my stocking.”
  • “I tried being good, and look what it got me.”

Elizabeth and Zechariah did, finally, have a son. And, after about thirty years, his head was cut off. But in the meantime, God was amazing. John, their son, the child that couldn’t have been born, upset the whole social structure. He paved the way for the One to come, for the Person who would follow.

So how long do you wait?

Until whatever you are waiting for absolutely couldn’t happen…without a miracle.

Way to listen

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(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday.)

“My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.’ ” (Psalm 20:7)

That’s a great way to start a day. Or end a day.

David, the guy who wrote those words, preceded those thoughts by saying, “Hear me as I pray, O Lord. Be merciful and answer me!” So God did respond by asking David to sit down and talk. Then in the talking with God, David would get his answers.

How often are we willing to sit down and talk with God? Talk. Listen. (Not just talk.)

A great time to do that might be on your drive (or train ride) to work. Or on the plane to that next conference, when you just don’t feel like talking to the person next to you. God will listen, without complaining. He usually doesn’t talk till you are ready to listen to Him. That’s not always true. Sometimes He shouts at us when we won’t listen any other way. Often He will talk through events in our lives. The “wake up!” variety.

Sometimes we are in a place where God seems silent. It’s helpful to zip down to the end of that Psalm to see how David responded to that situation: “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

Being patient can be really hard. Maybe it’s one of the hardest things we will face. But David urges us to be brave in the face of the unknown. Maybe you’re waiting on a job. Waiting on your daughter to choose her life direction, on trying for a baby or finding a life partner. Or waiting to see how you can make ends meet this month. Be brave. Wait. And talk to God. And listen.


someday you will understand

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Much happens in our lives that we don’t understand right away.

We have conversations, we watch things happen, we see things in the moment. We think we understand.

  • A person is cranky. We think they are mad at us. Or that they just have issues.
  • A person moves slowly. We think they are lazy. Or incompetent.
  • A person starts laughing. We think they are irrational.

Later, we get more information. We find out that the person just lost a family member to cancer. We find out that the person is living with multiple sclerosis. We find out that the person has is wearing a bluetooth and just heard a joke.

Because we don’t wait for all the pieces, we get the story wrong.

Jesus creates a disruption in the temple, and then tells the leaders that if they “destroy this temple, I will raise it again in three days.”

We have no idea what the disciples thought in the moment. We don’t know whether they were appalled or delighted or amused or confused. What we know is what they understood later.

John says,

But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

There are pieces of our lives that we do not understand. There is a disconnect between what we know that Jesus says of himself and what our experience says. It’s challenging to keep walking with him.

That’s what the disciples did. They understood pieces and they kept following, but they didn’t make sense of it until later. They lived with mystery.

They also lived with relationship. Because they knew Jesus, they didn’t have to understand him. Still a challenge. Still possible.