What are you waiting for?
Lots of us are waiting for a building: waiting to see what we'll come up with,
what it will look like, what it will cost. Some of us are waiting for classrooms,
or a kitchen, or a place where they can invite friends and neighbors to join
them in worship. Others are waiting to sing Christmas carols, or waiting for
the Sunday School Christmas Pageant, for cardboard camels and tiny pretend shepherds.
Most of us are waiting for Christmas, waiting to open gifts beneath a Christmas
tree, waiting to see a smile when gifts are unwrapped.
A few of us are waiting for respite, for an end to the pain of grief and loss.
One or two of us are waiting for a cure, and if not a cure at least a diagnosis.
We're waiting to learn if it's cancer, if it's treatable, if the treatments
will be affordable, if those treatments will make us sick or lose our hair.
We have family and friends waiting for their babies to be born, and a member
whose newborn now makes her wait to sleep. There is a child among us who waits
to learn if her parents will have enough money to pay the rent. At least one
of us is waiting to be loved. We have neighbors who wait for someone to invite
them to a place of worship on Christmas Eve.
We have entered Advent, the season when we practice waiting. Advent marks the
beginning of a new church year, the four weeks before Christmas that seem to
have nothing to do with Chrirstmas, four weeks to offer us a better view of
time and eternity. Those four short weeks are about something more lasting than
Christmas gifts and credit cards and getting home ahead of everyone else with
bigger and better presents than anyone else. They're about waiting for Jesus
- waiting to celebrate his birth in history, waiting for his return in the fullness
of time, waiting for his birth in our lives and his peace in our hearts.
So take heart, my friends - this is not just any kind of waiting. What we're
practicing together is hopeful waiting - waiting expectantly, waiting
for God to keep a promise and answer our prayers, waiting in the company of
the people of the promise, who by turns assure one another that our prayers
have already been answered beyond our wildest dreams. Join us the Sundays of
Advent, my friends, and see your waiting fulfilled.
What are you waiting for?
Pastor Jim
"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means 'God is with us.'" Matthew 1:23
From the Shepherd's Song Newsletter -- December 2007
Copyright 2007 by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
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E-mail your comments and questions to Pastor Jim in care of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at gslc@sirus.com.