The Joy of Waiting

Patience in

Hopeful Joy!

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2007

1. Opening Comments: This is the Third Sunday of Advent and as you have already noticed the focus is upon Joy. Joy is the theme of our reading from Isaiah:

Remember we read, “the desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.” But how can this be when we are in fact still in the penitential season of Advent?

Well today while we remain in the penitential season our focus shifts slightly from getting ready – that sense of purging and preparation - to the associated idea of “waiting” but with this idea comes the whisper of hope and with that hope - joy.

Today is Gaudete Sunday and it’s on this Sunday that we’re reminded that our waiting is never without hope and even joy!

It’s on this Sunday that we experience anew the essential paradox of the Advent season:

· light in darkness,

· presence in absense,

· fulfillment in the midst of longing.

To quote Lucy Shaw, “The paradox of joy in the midst of desire is embodied in a practice involving the Advent Wreath. The candles that ring the wreath are traditionally purple in color – all except one. The third Sunday of Advent is represented by a rose-colored candle – a hint of the joy to come. On the other three Sundays we light purple candles, the color of repentance and preparation. But on Gaudete Sunday we get something of a break from our acts of spiritual discipline and receive a foretaste of the grand celebration that will soon take place. Similarly, the clergy are permitted to wear rose-colored vestments on this day.” (God With Us – Edited by Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe, Paraclete Press, p 74).

Ah! Anticipation lifts the heart doesn’t it?

Desire is created to be fulfilled not dashed!

In our Old Testament reading we head Isaiah speak his words of joyful anticipation at a time when all that could literally be seen was a desert of spiritual barrenness and thirst! Listen once again to just a few of the hope-filled verses:

Is. 35:6

Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

Is. 35:7

The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

These are words of anticipation aren’t they!

Now listen to just a few of the words from our Psalm – Psalm 146 – words of hope:

Psa. 146:5

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the LORD his God,

Ah! Hope – we hope in our sovereign and good Lord!

In the New Testament Epistle of James we heard these words:

James 5:7

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains.

Ah! Patience as we wait in hope – just like the farmer who waits for the rains. He is patient as the corn forms. Patient in verdant hope!

It’s this hopeful patience that has captured my heart and mind this week as I reflected upon the sermon for today!

Eugene Peterson writes magnificently about this in his paraphrase of Romans chapter 8:20-25:

Rom. 8:20

Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in 21 until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

Rom. 8:22

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. 23 These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. 24 That is why waiting doesn’t diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. 25 But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Ah! Let me read those last two verses once again and tell me who, in this congregation, this probably resonates the most:

24 That’s why waiting doesn’t diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We’re enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. 25 But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

“The longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy!”

I think Sarah and Eric can truly relate to this experience don’t you!

“The longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy!”

So this morning God is reminding us that He who is Immanuel – God with us - is growing weightier and weightier within us as we continue to open ourselves to Him – as we continually allow Him to do His work within us.

I have had the great honor, as I’m sure many of you have, of watching people grow into greater and greater maturity in their faith.

Just this week I witnessed a number of us take a huge leap in maturity in their faith. Quite frankly it brought tears to my eyes.

If you want proof of the existence of God watch a person reach for Him in times of profound distress and witness their experiencing His outreached hands and His sublime consolations!

Ah! It’s a great journey most of us are on BUT it needs to be also said that it’s one of the most depressing things to watch people whom God is calling through suffering to greater and greater depths of spiritual maturity choose rather to run away – run away to the world, to addictions, to distractions. They run away from whom God is enabling them to become!

Instead of waiting and allowing God to bring change within them they run away and in so doing choose lives that invariably end in many many regrets!

O Lord, I pray that such will not be the experience of anyone here.

This morning God is calling you and me to wait patiently for Him – for His movements in our lives – We are to wait like Sarah is waiting! We mustn’t fight our condition but wait patiently in hope! - expecting God’s loving intervention in our lives! Do tell God what to do and when to do it! Wait patiently!

I want to quote once again from Jucy Shaw to explore this idea even further:

Though the protracted waiting time is often the place of distress, even disillusionment, we are counseled in the book of James to ‘let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete.’ Pain, grief, consternation, even despair, need not diminish us. They can augment us by adding to the breadth and depth of our experience, by enriching our spectrum of light and darkness, by keeping us from impulsively jumping into action before the time is ripe, before ‘the fullness of time.’ I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope!”

So what do we take from all of this?

Yes, joy is to be found in the waiting and preparation for our Lord’s coming.

He is our joy – May I encourage each of us to sit quietly somewhere today and simply reach out for Him. See to apprehend His Presence and invite Him to once again ignite your joy. He wants to – I know He wants to – so let Him!

Let me conclude with some wisdom from the great early twentieth century English Preacher by the name of G. Campbell Morgan:

Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given.

Let us pray . . .