Expectant Believers: Unexpected Companions

Scripture Readings: Romans 15:1-13; Matthew 1:1-6

A wealthy woman was interviewing a prospective servant, and she asked, “Can you serve company?” The applicant said, “Yes ma’am. I can serve them both ways.” The woman was puzzled and she asked, “What do you mean, both ways.” “Ma’am, I can serve them so they’ll come again, or so they’ll stay away.” (From “My Little Salesman Truck Catalog” quoted in “Parables, Etc”, June ’88)

When my dad was a kid, his family had a guest room in the attic. It was a big, full, old fashioned attic, and (to all appearances) it was a nice enough room: but, just as you would expect in the attic of an old house, it was an oven in the summer and an ice box in the winter.

Sometimes, especially because those were depression years, they would have relatives who would want to come and stay for some time. If these were relatives that they really liked, they would make room for them in their own bedrooms on the second floor. If they were relatives that they didn’t like so well, they put them up in the guest room.

Both of the scriptures readings for this sermon teach us about the hospitality of God, and the truth is that Jesus is the hospitality of God. And the fact of the truth is that having Jesus makes us agents and representatives of the hospitality of God. And by “us” I mean both “us” as individuals, and “us” as a congregation.

You wouldn’t think that a genealogy would be about hospitality. Some people use their genealogy as a way of being inhospitable; as a way of setting themselves apart and above other people. The people of Jesus’ day did that, and anyone who traced their genealogy back to the great King David could be expected to use it to show others how noble and pure blooded they were.

But, even though Matthew gave Jesus’ genealogy going back to King David, and further back to Abraham, he put some things into that list of names that made it into the right kind of genealogy that could properly belong in a gospel. Matthew deliberately made some additions that sabotaged Jesus’ genealogy in order to make a point for the gospel.

Gospel means good news. And, here, the good news of the gospel is about the hospitality of God.

God takes us to himself, draws us to himself, as if he were embracing us. God takes us to himself even though we are really no better than strangers. He takes us to himself even though, sometimes, we are no better than enemies. God takes us to himself as if we were ruined, and obnoxious, and freeloading relatives; because that is what we really are. We are his estranged children: rebels and runaways.

We don’t even know how to live at home. We don’t have the skills to fit in. But God comes down in Jesus. And, down here, he does something to us that changes us. God becomes that baby in the manger; that carpenter on the roof; that wanderer on the highway; that convict on the cross; that unexpected conqueror of death. God has become all of that for us in order to draw us to himself and make us welcome.

Each of our own personal genealogies is a long line of generations of runaways from home, who have had (in their own minds) no proper idea of what the home where we belong is really like. Our idea of God’s home is all about clouds, and crowns, and thrones, and harps, and wings. We have no idea what makes God tick, or what being at home with him is like, until we really see God in Jesus.

The people who love genealogies often love glory and purity. But Matthew sabotaged Jesus’ genealogy to make it about grace. Genealogies are supposed to be lists of ancestors who make you look good. Jesus is the child who turns his genealogy upside down. The fact that he is in the family is what makes his motley crew, his rogue’s gallery, of ancestors look good.

Other relatives in Jesus’ family would look at their list of names and see (in their minds eye) portraits of distinguished patriarchs and royalty. But they could only succeed in doing that if they cherished a selective memory, a defective memory, of those ancestors.

The Bible is the most honest book in the world. It shows the truth that all those distinguished ancestors were sinners, even the best of them. “Sinner” means someone who misses the mark, who falls short, or aims too wide, or goes too far. An honest son or daughter of David’s genealogy would know this.

How did Matthew really sabotage the genealogy of Jesus and make it a history of grace? He did this by including women, but certain women in particular: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (the wife of Uriah the Hittite).

Women, in general, were second class citizens. Putting their names in an official genealogy was simply not done. The people of Jesus’ time and place simply neglected to think that women were included in the great things that God does. They were just not ordinarily the people through whom you would expect to see God work.

The truth is that there are people through whom you do not expect God to work. But the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew tells us that there are no such people. Every person is someone through whom God can be expected to work. To put these four women in the genealogy means that you can expect the unexpected, and the unlikely, from people. You can expect the most unpromising people to belong in very same fellowship as you do, because the grace of God can work just as well for them as it can for you.

Each of these four women is worth studying as an example of the grace of God. Tamar was a foreign girl (probably, possibly, a Canaanite). Her claim to fame is that she was victimized by the selfishness of the family she had married into: the family of Israel. Her devotion to what was right and what was just put the tribe of Israel to shame. (Genesis 38:1-26)

Rahab was a Canaanite woman who was probably the priestess of a fertility goddess. The Old Testament calls her a prostitute because that is what her ministry, as a pagan priestess, looked like to the Israelites, and would look like to us. But Rahab was converted. She changed. She became a believer in the Lord; and she became part of the people of Israel and an ancestor of Jesus. (Joshua 2:1-11; 6:22-25)

Ruth was a humble young woman of the people of Moab. She had nothing against her but the fact that she was a pagan outsider, and a stranger to the ways of God’s people. And, in spite of the odds, and in spite of those who tried to discourage her (like her own mother-in-law, in Ruth 1:8-18), she came inside God’s family by faith.

The wife of Uriah the Hittite was probably a Hittite woman too. But King David lusted after her, and had an affair with her, and had her husband killed so that he could marry her. She became living proof that one of the greatest of God’s people had done things that he could be thoroughly ashamed of. The greatest of God’s people was capable of doing things that would make others ashamed of him. (2 Samuel 11:1-12:10)

The presence of Tamar and Bathsheba sabotage the genealogy of Jesus, because they demonstrate that the holy people are not holy, in and of themselves. God’s people are sinners, and sometimes those who are on the outside of God’s people put God’s own people to shame.

The outsiders are the people who are wronged. It is the insiders, the holy people, who do the wronging.

If God’s people would only have the humility to know that they are often the one’s who deserve to be blamed, then they would have hope. Even now, if God’s people will recognize that they are sinners, who need to repent and receive new life from God, then lessons like Jesus’ genealogy will be a word of grace to them.

We know absolutely nothing about the grace of God until we know how much we need that grace. And we can never talk about the grace of God to others unless we know how much we need that grace. And we can never talk about the grace of God to others unless we allow God to change our lives by nourishing us with that grace.

And that is what Paul meant when he wrote, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (Romans 15:7) Those who truly know the grace of God that has been given to us in Jesus can give that grace to others.
But more than that is true. Those who know the grace of God in Jesus are obliged to give that grace to others. Jesus accepted us to the praise of God. If we don’t accept others, then it is not to the praise of God. So you see it is pretty important, isn’t it?

“Accept one another.” Accept is a weak word to translate what Paul wrote in Greek. “Receive” would be a better word. “Welcome” would be even better yet. The Greek word, here, means something like “take to yourself” or “draw to yourself”.

The word “accept” can be such a weak, cold word. You can say: “I can accept them, but I don’t have to like them.” It’s true that, Biblically speaking, you don’t have to like other people; but, Biblically speaking, you do have to love them.
You have to receive them. You have to welcome them. You have to draw them to yourself. This is what God does with you in Christ. This is how we become the hands, and feet, and voices of Jesus, the hospitality of God.

The women who sabotaged Jesus’ genealogy were strangers and outsiders. They didn’t know the ways of God’s people. They didn’t have the same kind of history. They didn’t know the customs, or the vocabulary. They didn’t always know how to act or how to talk. But, by the grace of God, whether they were accepted or not, they belonged to God’s people. Perhaps they were never fully accepted in their life times, but they are accepted and welcomed in the story of Jesus.

People who haven’t been raised in the church have not learned our special language and our special ways. And we will seem as strange to them as they seem to us. They may even be able to see through some of our talk and some of our ways and see that there is a good amount of foolishness in us. They may see that we fret about the little things and that we are blind to the really important things. The only way to overcome this is by a disciplined commitment to the practice of welcome.

The acceptance and welcome of others in Jesus name is a holy discipline. You cannot keep the truth of grace in your heart unless you give grace. You cannot grow in your knowledge of grace unless you give grace. And being a Christian, being in Christ, is all about grace; from first to last.

It is not easy. It does not come naturally. It can only come supernaturally. This is what Paul understood, and what his words teach us, when he wrote, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves, as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:5) Because we have no endurance in ourselves, it is our nature to raise barriers and create obstacles for others. It is the nature of Jesus and his Holy Spirit to sabotage those barriers, and tear at them until they come down.

It takes endurance and encouragement from God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through intense prayer, to accept and welcome others; which is nothing more than knowing that you and those outsiders really represent only one single thing; one great work of God in Christ.

That is where the spirit of unity comes from. This again is the hospitality that God gives us in Jesus.

This unity is the message of the genealogy of Jesus. It is not the case that some of us are the best, and some of us are the worst. We all have some of the best and the worst inside us. What gives us real meaning, in all our imperfection, is Jesus: just as he gave meaning to all those ancestors who went before him; all that motley crew, who were so mixed up with the best and the worst fighting inside their hearts.

Sooner or later each one of us will wonder what our life means. The meaning of our life is that we can know that our lives are taken up into the grace, and wisdom, and love of God in Jesus.

This is the message of Christmas. He took upon himself our human life, so that he could share his life with us and welcome us, and draw us to himself, and take us to himself: the ultimate hospitality.

This is the message of the Lord’s Table. Jesus is our host. The baby of Bethlehem is part of his gift to make us welcome. All that a baby asks for is our love and our embrace. The love this baby (who will grow up to die for us) gives us is the greatest nourishment and strength in the world. He gives us himself.

Expectant Believers: Unexpected Companions

Scripture Readings: Romans 15:1-13; Matthew 1:1-6

A wealthy woman was interviewing a prospective servant, and she asked, “Can you serve company?” The applicant said, “Yes ma’am. I can serve them both ways.” The woman was puzzled and she asked, “What do you mean, both ways.” “Ma’am, I can serve them so they’ll come again, or so they’ll stay away.” (From “My Little Salesman Truck Catalog” quoted in “Parables, Etc”, June ’88)

When my dad was a kid, his family had a guest room in the attic. It was a big, full, old fashioned attic, and (to all appearances) it was a nice enough room: but, just as you would expect in the attic of an old house, it was an oven in the summer and an ice box in the winter.

Sometimes, especially because those were depression years, they would have relatives who would want to come and stay for some time. If these were relatives that they really liked, they would make room for them in their own bedrooms on the second floor. If they were relatives that they didn’t like so well, they put them up in the guest room.

Both of the scriptures readings for this sermon teach us about the hospitality of God, and the truth is that Jesus is the hospitality of God. And the fact of the truth is that having Jesus makes us agents and representatives of the hospitality of God. And by “us” I mean both “us” as individuals, and “us” as a congregation.

You wouldn’t think that a genealogy would be about hospitality. Some people use their genealogy as a way of being inhospitable; as a way of setting themselves apart and above other people. The people of Jesus’ day did that, and anyone who traced their genealogy back to the great King David could be expected to use it to show others how noble and pure blooded they were.

But, even though Matthew gave Jesus’ genealogy going back to King David, and further back to Abraham, he put some things into that list of names that made it into the right kind of genealogy that could properly belong in a gospel. Matthew deliberately made some additions that sabotaged Jesus’ genealogy in order to make a point for the gospel.

Gospel means good news. And, here, the good news of the gospel is about the hospitality of God.

God takes us to himself, draws us to himself, as if he were embracing us. God takes us to himself even though we are really no better than strangers. He takes us to himself even though, sometimes, we are no better than enemies. God takes us to himself as if we were ruined, and obnoxious, and freeloading relatives; because that is what we really are. We are his estranged children: rebels and runaways.

We don’t even know how to live at home. We don’t have the skills to fit in. But God comes down in Jesus. And, down here, he does something to us that changes us. God becomes that baby in the manger; that carpenter on the roof; that wanderer on the highway; that convict on the cross; that unexpected conqueror of death. God has become all of that for us in order to draw us to himself and make us welcome.

Each of our own personal genealogies is a long line of generations of runaways from home, who have had (in their own minds) no proper idea of what the home where we belong is really like. Our idea of God’s home is all about clouds, and crowns, and thrones, and harps, and wings. We have no idea what makes God tick, or what being at home with him is like, until we really see God in Jesus.

The people who love genealogies often love glory and purity. But Matthew sabotaged Jesus’ genealogy to make it about grace. Genealogies are supposed to be lists of ancestors who make you look good. Jesus is the child who turns his genealogy upside down. The fact that he is in the family is what makes his motley crew, his rogue’s gallery, of ancestors look good.

Other relatives in Jesus’ family would look at their list of names and see (in their minds eye) portraits of distinguished patriarchs and royalty. But they do only do that if they cherished a selective memory, a defective memory, of those ancestors.

The Bible is the most honest book in the world. It shows the truth that all those distinguished ancestors were sinners, even the best of them. “Sinner” means someone who misses the mark, who falls short, or aims too wide, or goes too far. An honest son or daughter of David’s genealogy would know this.

How did Matthew really sabotage the genealogy of Jesus and make it a history of grace? He did this by including women, but certain women in particular: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (the wife of Uriah the Hittite).

Women, in general, were second class citizens. Putting their names in an official genealogy was simply not done. The people of Jesus’ time and place simply neglected to think that women were included in the great things that God does. They were just not ordinarily the people through whom you would expect to see God work.

The truth is that there are people through whom you do not expect God to work. But the genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew tells us that there are no such people. Every person is someone through whom God can be expected to work. To put these four women in the genealogy means that you can expect the unexpected, and the unlikely, from people. You can expect the most unpromising people to belong in very same fellowship as you do, because the grace of God can work just as well for them as it can for you.

Each of these four women is worth studying as an example of the grace of God. Tamar was a foreign girl (probably, possibly, a Canaanite). Her claim to fame is that she was victimized by the selfishness of the family she had married into: the family of Israel. Her devotion to what was right and what was just put the tribe of Israel to shame. (Genesis 38:1-26)

Rahab was a Canaanite woman who was probably the priestess of a fertility goddess. The Old Testament calls her a prostitute because that is what her ministry, as a pagan priestess, looked like to the Israelites, and would look like to us. But Rahab was converted. She changed. She became a believer in the Lord; and she became part of the people of Israel and an ancestor of Jesus. (Joshua 2:1-11; 6:22-25)

Ruth was a humble young woman of the people of Moab. She had nothing against her but the fact that she was a pagan outsider, and a stranger to the ways of God’s people. And, in spite of the odds, and in spite of those who tried to discourage her (like her own mother-in-law, in Ruth 1:8-18), she came inside God’s family by faith.

The wife of Uriah the Hittite was probably a Hittite woman too. But King David lusted after her, and had an affair with her, and had her husband killed so that he could marry her. She became living proof that one of the greatest of God’s people had done things that he could be thoroughly ashamed of. The greatest of God’s people was capable of doing things that would make others ashamed of him. (2 Samuel 11:1-12:10)

The presence of Tamar and Bathsheba sabotage the genealogy of Jesus, because they demonstrate that the holy people are not holy, in and of themselves. God’s people are sinners, and sometimes those who are on the outside of God’s people put God’s own people to shame.

The outsiders are the people who are wronged. It is the insiders, the holy people, who do the wronging.

If God’s people would only have the humility to know that they are often the one’s who deserve to be blamed, then they would have hope. Even now, if God’s people will recognize that they are sinners, who need to repent and receive new life from God, then lessons like Jesus’ genealogy will be a word of grace to them.

We know absolutely nothing about the grace of God until we know how much we need that grace. And we can never talk about the grace of God to others unless we know how much we need that grace. And we can never talk about the grace of God to others unless we allow God to change our lives by nourishing us with that grace.

And that is what Paul meant when he wrote, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (Romans 15:7) Those who truly know the grace of God that has been given to us in Jesus can give that grace to others.
But more than that is true. Those who know the grace of God in Jesus are obliged to give that grace to others. Jesus accepted us to the praise of God. If we don’t accept others, then it is not to the praise of God. So you see it is pretty important, isn’t it?

“Accept one another.” Accept is a weak word to translate what Paul wrote in Greek. “Receive” would be a better word. “Welcome” would be even better yet. The Greek word, here, means something like “take to yourself” or “draw to yourself”.

The word “accept” can be such a weak, cold word. You can say: “I can accept them, but I don’t have to like them.” It’s true that, Biblically speaking, you don’t have to like other people; but, Biblically speaking, you do have to love them.
You have to receive them. You have to welcome them. You have to draw them to yourself. This is what God does with you in Christ. This is how we become the hands, and feet, and voices of Jesus, the hospitality of God.

The women who sabotaged Jesus’ genealogy were strangers and outsiders. They didn’t know the ways of God’s people. They didn’t have the same kind of history. They didn’t know the customs, or the vocabulary. They didn’t always know how to act or how to talk. But, by the grace of God, whether they were accepted or not, they belonged to God’s people. Perhaps they were never fully accepted in their life times, but they are accepted and welcomed in the story of Jesus.

People who haven’t been raised in the church have not learned our special language and our special ways. And we will seem as strange to them as they seem to us. They may even be able to see through some of our talk and some of our ways and see that there is a good amount of foolishness in us. They may see that we fret about the little things and that we are blind to the really important things. The only way to overcome this is by a disciplined commitment to the practice of welcome.

The acceptance and welcome of others in Jesus name is a holy discipline. You cannot keep the truth of grace in your heart unless you give grace. You cannot grow in your knowledge of grace unless you give grace. And being a Christian, being in Christ, is all about grace; from first to last.

It is not easy. It does not come naturally. It can only come supernaturally. This is what Paul understood, and what his words teach us, when he wrote, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves, as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:5) Because we have no endurance in ourselves, it is our nature to raise barriers and create obstacles for others. It is the nature of Jesus and his Holy Spirit to sabotage those barriers, and tear at them until they come down.

It takes endurance and encouragement from God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through intense prayer, to accept and welcome others; which is nothing more than knowing that you and those outsiders really represent only one single thing; one great work of God in Christ.

That is where the spirit of unity comes from. This again is the hospitality that God gives us in Jesus.

This unity is the message of the genealogy of Jesus. It is not the case that some of us are the best, and some of us are the worst. We all have some of the best and the worst inside us. What gives us real meaning, in all our imperfection, is Jesus: just as he gave meaning to all those ancestors who went before him; all that motley crew, who were so mixed up with the best and the worst fighting inside their hearts.

Sooner or later each one of us will wonder what our life means. The meaning of our life is that we can know that our lives are taken up into the grace, and wisdom, and love of God in Jesus.

This is the message of Christmas. He took upon himself our human life, so that he could share his life with us and welcome us, and draw us to himself, and take us to himself: the ultimate hospitality.

This is the message of the Lord’s Table. Jesus is our host. The baby of Bethlehem is part of his gift to make us welcome. All that a baby asks for is our love and our embrace. The love this baby (who will grow up to die for us) gives us is the greatest nourishment and strength in the world. He gives us himself.

Expectant Believers: Expect to Wait

Scripture Readings: Titus 2:11-14; Matthew 1:1-17

A pastor, and his wife, and their little girl were making the long drive to see grandpa and grandma for Christmas. They had been on the road for a long time, already, when the daughter asked the inevitable question: “Daddy, are we almost there yet?” Her father said, “No, honey, we still have 200 miles to go. It will take us at least three hours to get there.” The little girl couldn’t really comprehend what three hours felt like, so she leaned forward as far as she could and whispered to her mother, “Mommy, is that as long as one of Daddy’s sermons?” (Daniel Koehler; “Parables, Etc” July 1990)

It can be hard to wait. But one of the most important things we do in life is waiting. It is one of the holiest things we do.

One of the hardest things of all, about life, to understand and appreciate is the gift of waiting. We don’t understand the meaning of waiting; and so we usually get it wrong.

We can hardly wait. We can hardly wait till we are ten and have an age in double digits. We can hardly wait till we are thirteen, and be a teenager. We can hardly wait until we are sixteen and have our driver’s license. We can hardly wait till we graduate from high school. I won’t even go on to some of the other things we can hardly wait for.

Both of the scriptures we have read, this morning, are (among other things) about waiting.

The first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew tells us about nearly two thousand years of waiting. There was a promise that God made to Abraham, the first ancestor of the people of God and the people of Israel.

The promise is found in the twelfth Chapter of Genesis, and we can summarize it like this: the Lord said, “I will bless you, and you will be a blessing. By you all of the families of the earth will bless themselves.” (Genesis 12:1-3) “By you all the families of the earth will bless themselves.”

The promise was about one of Abraham’s offspring. One of Abraham’s offspring would bring blessing; would bring grace into the world; would change the hearts, and minds, and lives of all the families of the earth. It would be the greatest of all gifts.

Someone born of Abraham would bring something different, something entirely new into the world. Someone would restore the ruined image of God in human life, and in human relationships, so completely that there would be nothing else to call it but a new creation. It would be like being born again.

Paul believed this. And he wrote of it this way in his letter to Titus: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” (Titus 2:11)
We believe the good news is that Jesus brought this new life to his creation. Matthew believed this, and so he called Jesus the son of Abraham. Matthew was careful to trace the ancestry, to trace the genealogy, of this promise across the centuries from Abraham to Jesus.

Here is a promise that was two thousand years and over forty generations in the making, or in the keeping. That is one long, long wait.

Yet the wait is not over. For all we know, it has just begun.

Paul said that the grace of God teaches us the meaning of waiting. He said to Titus that the grace we have been given in Jesus: “teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness, and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:12-14)

The waiting that God’s people have been doing, since the first appearance of the grace of God in Jesus, has been going on for almost two thousand years and counting.
Both Matthew and Paul teach us that waiting for God to work is not supposed to be passive, and the time spent in waiting is not supposed to be empty. What we call waiting, God calls preparation.

The waiting that Matthew and Paul describe was preparation for grace. It was preparation for a gift of something that would be saving, and enabling, and liberating; something transforming and recreating.

The word advent means coming. It relates to the coming of God, in Jesus, as the baby of Bethlehem. It relates to the coming of God, in Jesus, in his return to rule when this age is complete.

When that happens, we, and the creation of which we are a part, will be ruled by the one who died for us on the cross. Our celebration of Christmas relates to all of this.

But the peculiar thing about the season of Advent is that it is about waiting, and learning how to wait, for this coming. And this is completely contrary to how we want to live: because we live in a world that is the devoted enemy of all waiting. We live in an age of fast travel, and fast food, and high speed access to the internet, and instant oatmeal, and the un-deferred gratification of our strongest desires.

God’s ways of working are opposite to this. There are so many ways that living life to the fullest, and living live at its highest, requires us to understand the meaning and holiness of active and productive waiting.

It is as simple as vegetables and dessert. Children want to eat their ice cream before they eat their vegetables. They don’t want to wait. But a life where ice cream always comes first would probably become a life without vegetables at all, and a life without vegetables, at all, would probably become a life of diabetes.

It would not be a good life at all. A life where ice cream came first would not be a healthy life. And one would never really understand the true meaning of ice cream without learning to eat your vegetables first.

I was talking to a member of our high school football team. Even though the football season is over, for us, the team is waiting for the next season.

They are waiting by weightlifting, which is one of the most boring and tedious things you can do. And the coaches want the team to do the most boring and tedious thing until it hurts. To tell you the truth, when I was a kid, I would never have done it; but this is the kind of active and productive waiting that is called preparation.

I want to read you something I found by an author named Paula Gooder. She wrote something she learned about waiting when she was pregnant with her first child. She wrote: “It was only when I was pregnant with my first child that I realized I had completely misunderstood what waiting was about. I have a very low boredom threshold and, consequently, am bad at waiting. Yet no one who is expecting a child wants the waiting to end and the baby to come early – that can only spell heartache. I began to discover that waiting is not just about passing time but that it has a deep and lasting value in and of itself.

“Waiting can be a nurturing time. Pregnant waiting is a profoundly creative act, involving a slow growth to new life. This kind of waiting may appear passive externally but internally it consists of never-ending action and is a helpful analogy for the kind of waiting that Advent requires.” (In “Christianity Today”; “The Meaning is in the Waiting: the Spirit of Advent”; p 64)

Even children who would rather eat their ice cream first can show us some of the holiness of waiting. It comes out as Christmas approaches. They learn to count the days, and look forward to each day as the nearing of grace and (of course) the nearing of presents. They want to be part of things. They want to help make things good for others. They can be taught to care about those who don’t have as much as they do. They learn to enjoy the planning and giving of gifts. They want to create things for the joy and happiness of others. This is the waiting of a life that is lived to the fullest.

It’s true that they may even get into the “naughty or nice” syndrome, which is not about grace at all. But that (at least) is about an understanding of what brings pleasure to others.

In airports you can watch families waiting and learn from them; especially from parents of small children. Waiting in an airport is not easy for anyone, especially when flights get delayed by the weather. But you learn about waiting by watching parents help their children to wait. Sometimes it’s not a pretty sight; but some parents are really heroes. You see their love in action and you know that their children will be blest by this.

Paul says that grace teaches us to wait by learning godliness, and this is an interesting word. The Greek word that gets translated as “godliness” would be more clearly translated as “reverence”. It is like a windmill that is designed to catch the wind by pointing toward it. Godliness is a God-pointed life, but it isn’t blind to everything but God.

A good husband sees his wife just as she is in God, and he points his life toward her; and she does the same to him. Parents and teachers see children just as they are in God, and they point their lives toward to them, and give them the best nurture that they can. Those who have something to share see those who are in need just as they are in God, and they point their lives towards them with the best gifts and help that they are able to give. Those who know the Lord, see those who don’t just as they are in God, and they point their lives toward them with the love of God. Reverence causes you to live toward everything and toward everyone in a God-pointed direction.

Godliness, or reverence, is a way of responding to grace. It is also a way of waiting and preparation for grace. It is a transformation that gives you a different life because you know what it means to have received grace in the first place. It is also true that this grace-shaped kind of life opens your eyes and enables you to see more of the grace of God that is reaching out to you. And, so, it makes you receptive to grace.

“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people.” Christmas celebrates Jesus, who is the incarnation of God (which means God in the flesh; God becoming human). Jesus is God with us; God pointing his life toward us and giving us grace. And here, again, we see the holiness of waiting.

God didn’t just wave his hand and say, “I give you grace. I give you my forgiveness and my life-changing love.” Maybe the truth is that no such grace can be easily and quickly give. Maybe true grace always takes time.

God used time to give us a holy grace. God used his baby face, his sleeping in a manger, his family’s escape as refugees from a murderous king. God used the silent/normal years of his boyhood and his work as a carpenter. God used the three years of his wandering life on the road, his healing of the sick and his feeding of the hungry. God used his time in the process of the injustice of his arrest, and his being mocked, and his being beaten. God used his time in the process of and his conviction, his execution, his death, and his resurrection. All this took time and none of that time was wasted.

This is God at work. He took time to point his life toward us and give us grace. And so our time now never needs to be never passive, empty waiting. All time is grace to prepare us for grace.

There is plenty to do, plenty to think about, plenty to pay attention to, even when we think we are just waiting and wasting our time. God gives us the gift of time, and that is good for us, because that is grace.