According to an account in the New York Times, it was just before Christmas several years ago that David Storch, a music teacher, borrowed a copy of the score of Handel's "Messiah" from the Brooklyn Public Library. Through a clerical error, however, the transaction was not recorded. There were several other requests for the score, and the library staff, unaware that it had been checked out, spent many hours searching in vain for it through the stacks. On the day that Storch returned it, placing it on the circulation desk, he was astonished to hear the librarian spontaneously, joyously, and loudly shout, "The 'Messiah' is here! The 'Messiah' is back!" Every head in the library turned toward the voice, but, alas, as the Times reported, "A few minutes later everyone went back to work."

A wry story, but also a parable of the often dashed expectations of those who wait for God. Someone cries, "Peace, peace," but there is no peace. Another says, "Comfort, comfort," but there is little comfort. "Come, thou long-expected Jesus," goes the prayerful hymn, and heads turn in a moment of curious interest, then, seeing nothing, go back to work. And so, weary of waiting on a God who does not come, we lower our horizons, fold our hands in prayer to more tangible gods to give us purpose, and turn to more immediate and reliable resources for hope. We build shiny sanctuaries of glass and steel where we can celebrate "possibility thinking" and the other human potentials, which we hope will save us from our self-doubt, if not our sins. We fill the silos and the skies with ever more potent weapons of destruction, which we hope will save us from each other. And we summon the elixirs of modern medicine to save us from disease, aging, and finally from death. In short, tired of waiting for the one true God, we create our own, molded in our own image.