As a child I remember that the most difficult part of Christmas was simply waiting for it to come. From Thanksgiving to December 25 seemed more like an eternity than a month. Days seemed like weeks. Weeks felt like seasons. Time seemed to stand still.

Waiting is foreign to our society. It seems unnatural. We hunger for immediate gratification. The idea of delayed satisfaction is a stranger to our thinking.

The symbols of our unwillingness to wait are all around us. Fast food chains boom because we don’t have time to eat. We stand in crooked lines, then yell out an order, get it down in five minutes and then get back to the rat race. We haven’t got time to sit down and read a book anymore. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that we have condensed versions of the Bible. In kitchens all over America there are gadgets to get the meal prepared quickly. I would guess Mr. Coffee started it all. Simply spoon in the coffee and pour water. The coffee is made before you can even find a cup. When we become sick we want to be made well now, not later. Medicine, doctors, pastoral care and love are often rejected if they are not swift.

I, like you, accept most of our no—wait approach to life, with the exception of instant potatoes, which are intolerable. But the truth is that, though we do not like waiting, waiting is a part of living. We must wait for payday, a break, quitting time, and for the mailman. When you do your Christmas shopping, you had certainly better be prepared to wait in a line to get checked out, wait to get a parking place, and wait through at least four red lights before making a left hand turn on Poplar Ave.

But there are also very serious matters for which we wait. Some wait for health to return, some for the coming of food stamps, some for marriage or remarriage. We must wait for peace. A scared child waits for the coming of morning, and a scared adult awaits death. And an expectant mother waits for delivery. Waiting can be pure agony. It’s like the jury is out.

The problem is that scripture time and time again tells us that God’s clock is wound in a different way. Time is different to him. We look at seconds; he looks at the ages. Waiting, not hurrying is one of his characteristics. And this waiting God tells his people that often, they too must wait.

And that is where the story of Christmas really begins. It begins thousands of years before the birth of Christ. They longed for that one who would bring light out of darkness, and make the blind to see. They

Longed for that one who would turn their sorrow into joy, and vanquish their enemies. But, God said, you must wait. Let us look at how God’s people have waited throughout the ages:

I

First I would like to look at waiting in the Old Testament. Long before Jesus walked on earth the people of God, the Jews, were told that a great savior was to come. The New Testament writers were keenly aware of the Old Testament references. There are dozens of references to the Messiah in the Old Testament. Look at them with me:

· Matthew (1:21-23) says the virgin conception of Jesus is found in Isaiah 7:14

· John (7:42) says his birth in Bethlehem is found in Micah 5:2

· Matthew (2:15) points the family’s flight to Egypt in Hosea 11:1

· Mark (1:2) finds the ministry of John the Baptist in Malachi 3:1

· Luke (18:32) recognizes the suffering messiah in Isaiah 53:3ff.

· John (19:24,28,36,37) shows us that the casting of lots for the clothes of Jesus, his thirst on the cross, his bones not being broken, as was the custom, and his pierced side are all there in the Old Testament (Psalm 22:18, 22:15, 34:20, and Zechariah 12:10).

· His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven are all over the Old Testament, in Isaiah 53:7, Deuteronomy 21:33, Psalm 18, 2 Samuel 7:12-13. Hosea 6:2.

There are dozen’s more in the Gospels. The other books of the New Testament, the books we call the Epistles quote the Old testament 33 times referring to prophecies about Jesus and his church. I hope you got all that there will be a test after our sermon today. It is a lot isn’t it? Close to 100 references to the Old Testament in the New Testament. I point all this out to let you know that waiting is part of our faith. Sometimes we wait for that which we know we will never see but by faith we still wait knowing that our children and our children’s children will see it one day.

Abraham waited for that which he could not see: A son. Moses waited for that which he could not see: A Promised Land. Mary waited for that which the Angel Gabriel had announced: A Son whose kingdom would know no end. John waited for one whose sandal he was not worthy to untie: A Messiah. We wait. We wait for that which we cannot see.

What are you waiting for?

II

Secondly, there is the waiting of John the Baptist. The people of John’s day experienced a special kind of waiting. When Jesus was a young man in his late 20s, John the Baptist was a desert prophet warning everyone of the wrath of God and the judgment to come. His message was harsh. It was a sharp rebuke especially of the religious leadership. The people had been worked up into such frenzy that they thought that he was the messiah. Many who came out to see him would go home to family and workmates and gossip about him. They were convinced he was the messiah or had something to do with it. But John said, no, I am not he and for now, you must wait: He said, I came to tell you about the light that is to come. The people pressed him to say more but all that John would say was: I am not he.

Let me tell you s story. There was a woman once who wanted peace in the world and peace in her heart, but she was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart and her personal life wasn't that great either. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went to the mall and walked in to one of the stores. She was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus because he looked just like the paintings she'd seen in museums and in devotional books. Finally she got up her nerve and asked, "Excuse me, but are you Jesus?" "I am." "Do you work here?" "In a way; I own the store." "Oh, what do you sell here?" "Just about everything," Jesus replied. "Feel free to walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is you want, and then come back and I'll see what I can do for you."

Well, she did just that. She walked up and down the aisles, writing furiously. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty. There was peace in families, harmony, no dissension, no more drugs. There careful use of resources. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus looked over the list, then smiled at her and said, "No problem." And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, and finally stood up, and laid out the packets on the counter. "What are these?" the woman asked. "Seed packets," Jesus answered. "This is a catalog store." "You mean I don't get the finished product?" "No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You go home and plant the seeds. You water them and nurture them and help them to grow, and someday someone else reaps the benefits." "Oh," she said. "And she left the store without buying anything."

John understood that he was planting the seeds. The message is we must wait. Are you willing to do the work and wait?

III

This is season of advent, the four Sundays prior to Christmas. For the Christian it is a time of waiting. It is perhaps an awkward season, because we would much prefer to dismiss with the preliminaries and get right down to the particulars of the birth of Jesus. We would much prefer to hear as the scripture lesson: And there were abiding in that country we would the words of Isaiah spoken centuries earlier: Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight your highways. But the message of Advent is that we do not have permission to rush God’s story. It says to us that for now, we must wait.

Even the hymns of advent remind us of this: Come, thou long expected Jesus. 0 Come, 0 Come, Emmanuel. We long with anticipation. The day of fulfillment will come. But for now, the people of God must wait.

There is special kind of waiting that many of us at some point in our lives will experience and that is the birth of the first-born child in your family. I remember going to Lamaze classes fully understand what was happening. How excited we were when we got to see that first ultra sound picture. I insisted that it was a boy. But I had to wait. There was an appointed time and nothing I could do would make that day come a single minute closer. And then the day came. I had to put on this green gown and shower cap. Again I had to wait. I distinctly remember standing around waiting. Waiting while she went through labor. I will have to admit her waiting was a lot different then mine. But we wait for a few hours more with an anticipation that only a parent could possibly understand.

How will you wait for the birth of the Christ child during this advent season? Will it be with a blank stare, or will it be with a surge of exciting anticipation, wanting to know all that you can about it. For now we must wait. But, my friends, how we wait makes all of the difference in the world. Amen.