What Are We Waiting For?

December 2015 Pastor's Point of View Article

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?
Advent is a season of expectant waiting and preparation
for the celebration of the nativity of Jesus at Christmas. 
 
What are we waiting for? 
For thousands of years the Jewish people waited for the coming of the Messiah.  God answered the longing in their hearts, but did not send the Messiah they expected!  Not a mighty warrior...instead a humble, humiliated man who died with these words on his lips:  “Forgive them Father, they (us too?) do not know what they are doing.” 
 
What are we waiting for? 
In these United States of America, we are waiting for Christmas, a day filled with lavish gifts, hearty meals, and the loving embrace of family.  But for so many Americans—that day has yet to come. 
 
What are waiting for? 
The long-awaited Messiah who God sent to his people, Jesus of Nazareth, announced that he was ushering in a world of peace; a world where the poor would be blessed, the blind would see and the oppressed set free.  Yet, this world is overflowing with violence and poor, blind, oppressed people! 
 
What are we waiting for?
When I, your pastor, asked myself that question before writing this article, these words came to me:  “And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
The Messiah who God sent to Israel was not the Messiah they expected.  The world we live in is not the world Jesus envisioned.  Yet the world we live in, the bodies we inhabit, the families we are part of; this all we have.  No denying how messed up this world is.  No hiding from it.  Let’s turn and face this screwed up world that God loves.  Take a deep breath and say an even deeper prayer.  
 
What are we waiting for?
I wait for faith, hope, and love to be born in my heart and yours and in the hearts of people around the world.  And I mean the whole world!  Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, Confucianists, etc….etc….After all, God did not send Jesus for Christians to cling to.   God sent a Jewish man to the Middle East, a man of grace, peace, and justice, a man destined to die for the sins of all people, a man to be embraced by the whole world, and his name will be Christ the Lord.
 
May your advent be blessed and your Christmas merry!
 
Pastor Michael