December 18, 2011
Luke 1:26-45
Our wait is almost over. Another week and we’ll be celebrating the birth of our Savior. Of course, our wait for his return will continue, and I hope our celebrating Jesus’ first coming will be more than opening gifts, that we’ll worship and give thanks for his birth. Over the past four weeks, we’ve been reminded that God’s timing is different than ours. Sometimes we have to wait generations and centuries, but when we wait, God is good and his promises are fulfilled. We’ve been reminded that waiting isn’t wasting time, for it is through waiting that God transforms his people. And finally, last week, we saw how learning to wait can help us improve our own lives, for when we act rashly, we often find ourselves in hot water, having offended others by our words and deeds. Waiting is not all bad. Being patient is a godly trait that we all need to work on. Today, we will be looking at two women, one old and the other young, who are expecting their first child. As we can imagine, that nine-month wait was full of expectation. Read Luke 1:26-45.
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The boy stared intently at the manger, but he couldn’t get it out of his head that Christmas wasn’t just about him receiving gifts. So he began to compose a letter. “Dear Jesus,” he wrote, “If you bring me all that I want, I’ll be good for the year…” Then he thought about how hard that’d be and so he tore up the letter and tossed it in the waste basket and started over. “Dear Jesus, if you bring me all that I want, I’ll be good for a month. Again the thought about how hard that would be, to be good for a month, for 30 days. He crumbled the letter and dropped it in the waste basket and started again. “Dear Jesus, if you bring me all that I want, I’ll be good for a week.” Thinking further, he realized how futile such an effort would be so he tossed that letter and resumed his contemplation of the Nativity.
Suddenly he spotted the figure of Mary, there in the back, behind the manger, a beautiful young woman wrapped in a light blue shawl, her face shining as she gazes upon her newborn son. He snatched Mary out the Nativity, wrapped her in some tissue paper and hid her in the bottom drawer in his dresser. Then he went back to writing his letter. “Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again…”
Parents and mothers in particular know about waiting… Those nine months, especially for the first child, can be hectic as you learn about breathing techniques during delivery and how to care for a newborn. And then there is the necessity of preparing for a nursery—most of us can’t get by repurposing a manger for a crib. There is a lot of anticipation and hope during the nine months, as you pray your newborn child won’t grow up to be the terror like the little boy in my opening story. But even if that happens, we’ll still look back on moments like that with a smile.
I can’t imagine what must have gone through Mary’s mind as she is visited by Gabriel. Here she is, engaged to Joseph, and now she’s carrying a special child. But she’s told to have no fear (I think that’s easier for an angel to say than for Mary to do). Gabriel explains about how the child was conceived and his purpose in life. And he also has another message, one for a relative of Mary’s, Elizabeth. After years of trying to conceive a child, she’s given up hope. Now that she’s too old, she finds herself pregnant. It seems impossible, but Mary is reminded that nothing is impossible with God.
Mary heads down into the Judean hill country to visit Elizabeth. It used to be that way; a young woman who is not yet married, yet pregnant, would go and live with an aunt or a grandmother. With Zechariah having been struck silent for his disbelief,[2] I’m sure the two women talked incessantly about their expectant babies. We’re told that when they greeted each other, Elizabeth’s child, who will be John the Baptist, jumps in her womb. The premature boys in the womb recognize each other. There is much excitement, for they understand that God is doing something new. But they have to wait. They have to wait till their children are born, and then they have to wait till they are grown. Jesus, we learn, doesn’t start his ministry till he’s thirty[3] and John, instead of leading worship in a fine synagogue in a respectable city, as his parents may have envisioned, instead preaches from the muddy banks of the Jordan River.[4] God does work in mysterious and strange ways.
In the Advent devotional I’ve been reading this season is an essay by Henri Nouwen based on our text this morning. Nouwen says this:
I find the meeting of these two women very moving, because Elizabeth and Mary came together and enabled each other to wait. Mary’s visit made Elizabeth aware of what she was waiting for. The child leaped in joy in her. Mary affirmed Elizabeth’s waiting…. These two women created space for each other to wait. They affirmed for each other that something was happening that was worth waiting for.”[5]
I like the idea of the two of them creating space for the other to wait. Our world encourages us to rush in and fix things right away. We don’t value waiting. Often, when talking to a couple who are planning on marrying, I’ll discuss the danger of trying to jump right away on a conflict. The problem of solving conflicts when you’re in the heat of battle is that you don’t think very clearly. Often, the battle during the height of a conflict is fought over something that’s not at all related to the real issue. Calling a cease fire and waiting, while cooling off, allows both parties to see things more clearly. We need to create space for us and for others to wait; knowing that distance gives us better perspective and in that hopes God is working with us as we wait.
It is healthy for us to accept and understand that there are things in life we can’t control. We can’t control when God wants to act. Mary and Elizabeth, in our passage today, had no control over what was happening. If it had been in Elizabeth’s control, I’m sure that she’d given birth to John when she and Zechariah were young enough that their backs didn’t ache from picking up the boy. And Mary, if she’d been asked, I’m sure she’d suggested things wait until after she and Joseph have been married a few years and maybe taken a cruise or two. The idea of honeymooning in Egypt with a newborn, while on the run from the authorities wasn’t any more romantic then than it would be now.
Before I move to close this sermon, I want to talk about the church and waiting. I admit that I’m often frustrated at the pace the church moves. I’ve often felt that as a pastor attempting to change the course to a church, I am about as successful as a Captain of a battleship trying to steer from the bow, with a canoe paddle. Change comes slowly and some people get upset with that (while others don’t want change at all). But if we look at scripture, we shouldn’t be surprised that change takes time. God seems to wait till the timing is right, and only then does the speed of change accelerates. For so long God had been quiet; there had been no prophets in Israel. And then, all of a sudden, God acts and the world is changed forever.
Paul Davies has been having the staff read a book by Larry Osborne titled Sticky Teams (and my plan is for the Session to read the book early next year). Osborne discusses how we often seem concern with God’s will (which he admits is a worthwhile endeavor as God is not always clear and we have to discern it), but he goes on to say that just as important as it being God’s will, we have to make sure it’s God’s timing. God’s will has a “what and when” component.[6] We can want things to go faster, but we must remember that its best if we go with God’s timing. Otherwise, we’ll make a mess of things.
The two women in our passage today, one who may have only been barely more than a child and the other who was up in years, remind us that whatever our age (or whatever our level of spiritual maturity may be) when you are open to God, the Almighty is so powerful that he can use us to do incredible things. We just have to be open to the Lord and to wait on his timing.
We live in a world where we expect instant gratification. But when it comes to our faith, such expectations may be unrealistic and even harmful. Having faith means we’re in God’s hands and must be open to his timing. We don’t know when Jesus will return, but we should anticipate it and be ready. In the meantime, like Mary and Elizabeth, we need to support one another. Amen.
©2011 Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church, Hastings, MI
[1] This line came from MaryMartha Melendy.
[2] Luke 1:20
[3] Luke 3:23
[4] Matthew 3; Mark 1:1-9; Luke 3:1-21; John 3:22-24. John’s preaching was limited to the Jordan, but to that region.
[5] Henri Nouwen “Waiting for God” in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 35.
[6] Larry Osborne, Sticky Teams (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 179.
