Kids these days: An Advent meditation

"About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant."

"While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel."

(Luke 2:1-7, The Message)

What do you think of teenagers these days? To you are they overfed, under-worked, and otherwise a fairly self-absorbed lot? At times, I think the same thing. But I just think that means I'm getting older for from time to time I catch myself muttering about kids these days with their phones, their ear-buds and their snap-chatting. 

And then as I re-read the story of Jesus' birth I'm reminded that it was through teenagers that God inaugurated a new age for Planet Earth. Of course, nobody really knows how old Mary and Joseph were when Jesus was born. The Gospel writers Matthew and Luke who were the only ones to write about Jesus' Nativity didn't think that was relevant to the story so we're left to grasp at possibilities.

We live in a wonderful time for women in particular. Never before

Currently running for President

has the door been so wide open for a woman's career aspirations. Do  you aspire to be a scientist? an astronaut? a professional athlete? The sky seems to be the limit. Currently there is a female former Air Force pilot running for President - and certainly one day in our time our chief executive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will be a woman.

But not in Mary's day. In those times once a young girl began her monthly cycle it was time for her to settle down, get married and start raising a family. Life expectancy was a lot less in those days and it was important to get down to business and keep the family name alive. So, depending on who you read, Mary might have been 13 or 14 years old when the Holy Spirit came on her to conceive Messiah. Among our fellowship's ranks are a set of triplets who are currently in the 7th grade and 14 years old. That the idea of one of them being a bride and with child is downright creepy reminds us how far we've come in two millenia.

Mary could have looked young like this

Joseph, on the other hand, could have been as old as 30 (he was, after all, already established in his trade) but I just read a commentary the other day who speculated that he may, in fact, have been as young as 18 years old. In Joseph's day, there was none of this thought of allowing a lad "to sow his wild oats" before he settled down. After all, as the Torah so eloquently puts it, "It's not good for a man to be alone" (see Genesis 2). Better to get a young man married early to channel his normal desires in a healthy way.

Granted there were a lot of things different back then. A 14-year old young woman and an 18-year-old young man back then were, by comparison to kids today, most likely way more mature. But as I reflect on God's great undertaking to save the human race the fact that he chose two young, godly and yet inexperienced kids to steward his son until he was of age is, to me, remarkable.

When I think of most Nativity sets I've seen, our own included,

This is how we're used to seeing them

Joseph always looks so old and wise with a full beard and Mary so very maternal as if she's an old hand of bringing kids into the world. But what if they were, in actuality, kids in their teen years? What did they know about parenting? It's weighty enough to bring a child into the world but to bear Messiah, the hope of their nation, and then raise him as a son of the Covenant? That's a tall order for any couple let alone a newly married young one? 

Just think the stories that might have been murmured behind closed doors in Nazareth about how quickly the two finalized their wedding plans before heading south on account of the Census. But as far as we know they bore this all in dignified silence knowing they were part of something way bigger themselves.

Earth's mightiest heroes in the MCU

But it's just like God, isn't it?  As much as I enjoy all the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies of Avengers saving the planet from aliens and a demi-god with a serious ego problem by comparison God's way seems so frail, so flimsy, so weak. Ask a young couple to shoulder the burden of parenthood and then send them out on their own heading south to register for the Roman census while Mary was nearly at term. Yeah, he chose as he always seems to choose - "the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are" (1 Corinthians 1:27-28, NIV).

For the record the fact is I know a LOT of good teens who are well on their way to becoming fine men and women and participants in God's salvation story that He is still writing. Thank God for them - and kids like Mary and Joseph who were willing to "step off the map" as it were and take God at his word when He called on them to do so. They played a key role in the saving of the human race.

These heroes were the real deal

Breaking into jail

“No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make
His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found
Far as the curse is found
Far as, far as the curse is found!”

Joy to the World by Isaac Watts

The other night about twenty folks from Refuge gathered in the sanctuary for what I hope will be an annual tradition. Lots of fellowships have Christmas cantatas and programs, cookie walks and caroling events. Our first ten years or so in Chetek the annual Christmas production here was a big deal until it just went away mostly because there was no one who felt inspired enough to run with it. But last year Troy felt compelled to try something different.

I've written copiously about Troy in previous posts, the former inmate at the Barron County Justice Center who likes to tell people that he wasn't looking for Jesus but Jesus found him. Over the last three and a half years we have watched the story of salvation slowly unfold in his life and in the life of his wife and son. On his fortieth birthday, Troy could boast that he had been in and out of correctional facilities twenty times in twenty years because of drug and alcohol abuse. But then Jesus found him and since 2011 he not only has been saved but also sober. In 2012, he began assisting me in the monthly services that I lead at the Justice Center proudly sporting what he likes to tell people is his “get out of jail free card.” His story has encouraged lots of the guys and gals there (as well as a whole bunch of us at Refuge.)

Last year he had an idea to gift every inmate at the JC a goodie-sack for Christmas and set about asking various businesses to donate to the cause whether by making a financial contribution or with gifts in kind (at any given time there are approximately 120 inmates incarcerated at the jail.) Our local grocery store donated cookies and candy canes. Another store contributed the paper sacks. A local coffee house put together some flavored coffees for the jailers working either on Christmas Eve or Day. And a lot of ladies from our fellowship made up home-made bars and cookies for not only the jailers and the Captain but also our local police. Along with the treats, within each sack we placed a Christmas card with a brief note of encouragement. Then on the Sunday before Christmas, we gathered at Refuge to put it all together. There were about 10 of us last year and it took us maybe an hour to accomplish the task.

On Christmas Eve, Troy and I went on our delivery run. In his days before he was a disciple of Jesus, there were times when Troy was required to frequent our local police station twice a day to test for his sobriety. The look on Capt Peterson's face as Troy handed him a tray of cookies on behalf of Refuge and with thanks for keeping us safe was memorable to say the least, a picture, among many, of what salvation looks like. Of course, our gifts were well received at the JC as well.

This year, Troy redoubled his efforts and found a few more businesses that were willing to donate to this campaign. He went to our local newspaper with an idea of wanting to gift each inmate with a bookmark that had one his favorite Bible verses on it - “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation...the old has gone, the new has come!” They designed it and printed up 120 beautiful bookmarks gratis. Captain Evenson, head jailer, even allowed us to include a sack of hot chocolate mix along with the usual items we place within the sacks.

Troy, Marie & Alex

It's been a challenging year for Troy. His 16-year-old son fathered a son of his own and because of the emotional instability of the child's mother he and Marie have become the legal guardians and defacto parents of little Izik until further notice. He lost his job in Rice Lake and then, because he threw out his back at another place of employment in Turtle Lake, walked before they could terminate him. He started working again this fall at a company in Chetek. But a few weeks ago, his wife, Marie, was hospitalized with a severe case of Bell's Palsy and so he's had to miss work to help care for her. But despite this avalanche of challenges, he's kept with the goody-sack project collecting the items promised by the local vendors.

The crew

This past Sunday night nearly twenty of us gathered in the sanctuary to assemble the sacks. Marie, despite having to use a walker of late, was also present to help lend a hand as was their son, Alex. Lots of joyous banter could be heard as the sacks and the trays were assembled assembly-line style. In maybe thirty-minutes 120 bags were filled. We then went into a time of prayer, praying not only for God's favor on each sack but also for the inmates and the staff at the Barron County Jail. We didn't sing the Hallelujah chorus or even hum a carol or two but this work we did and the spirit in which it was done, I'm certain was a pleasing thing in God's eyes. Its also a small but tangible token that they while incarcerated and separated from their life “out there,” God has definitely moved into each of our neighborhoods through Jesus the Son.

As Paul put it,

“With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?... Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture...None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (Romans 8:31-32, 35, 37-39, The Message)

This afternoon Troy and I will go on our delivery run to the Chetek P.D. and the JC carrying the sacks and trays and a few other items. This outing is a song, too. Like Joy to the World come to life, we carry Christmas cookies and good news “far as the curse is found.”

Like Troy, Jesus found the rest of us too!

Repeating the sounding joy

“...Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.”   

   “Joy to the World” by Isaac Watts

I'm normally a pretty upbeat guy encouraged for no reason in particular. Ask my wife, who isn't so naturally perky, and she can attest how annoyingly optimistic I can be. But not this week. On Saturday morning, during my long run, I strained my hamstring in my left leg and have been unable to run on it since. At first it just felt tight and I kept hoping I would work through it but fifteen miles later it was no less taut. By the afternoon when it was painful to sit down or get up from my desk I knew something more than lactic acid buildup was at work in my leg. And by Sunday morning when it felt no better I knew something was amiss in me. Despite the blizzard that blew in here Sunday afternoon dropping more than a foot of snow in our area, Monday morning I attempted to try out the leg on our snow-covered roads. I made it about 20 feet and realized I would not be able to just work through it, especially if I was having to run through small drifts of snow. So I stopped and walked back to the house. For the first time in months I would not be heading down the road for my early Monday morning run. In fact, I've had to rest this last week simply because to try and run would be certain to injure my leg worse. And that fact alone has got me discombobulated.

Somewhere in the general vicinity

Why? Well, to put it in perspective 2012 will go down in my book as my best running year yet in the 13 since my return to running. In April I crossed the 10,000 mile threshold and a week before Halloween I recorded my third 1,000 mile year since 2000. I am on pace to log nearly 1,400 miles before year's end. Since the beginning of Cross Country season I have lost 20 pounds, dropped one pants' size and have felt the difference in my daily runs. Honestly, at 50 I feel like I'm just hitting my stride and now...this. My plan has been to run the Tuscobia Ultra at the end of the month with hopes of recording a sub-8 hour 35-mile run. Missing a few days won't necessarily hinder me from doing that but missing much more could really screw my training up. And thinking about all this doesn't make it any better.

This is how I have felt on the inside

It's pretty simple: when I don't run, I don't feel right. My inward equilibrium is off and being sedentary makes me vulnerable to “crazy-think.” What I call “crazy-think” is the habit of reading erroneous messages in the happenstances of daily life. Someone doesn't return your “good-morning” in the hall and you take it personally. That's crazy-think. On Sunday I felt I did a poor job leading worship and preaching and read all kinds of things into people's body-language (mostly the glazed-over look that most preachers are accustomed to seeing as they do their work except this time it bothered me.) Only two high school students showed up for early morning breakfast and devotions on Wednesday morning – and one of them doesn't count because she lives at my house – and no kids were signed up to help lead the annual gathering at Knapp Haven, our local nursing home on Wednesday afternoon and suddenly this perky fella is feeling rather “loserish.” This is “crazy-think” but I think I can say that for ministers its a vocational liability from time to time.

How it has looked in years past

In Wisconsin, Wednesday was officially Aaron Rodgers Day. Wear #12 and win a Super Bowl and an MVP title to boot and I guess you deserve a day named after you. But on 12/12/12 I found a solution to pull me up from my emotional nose-dive I felt like I was rolling into. At lunch time I asked my 22-year-old autistic son, Charlie, if he would help me lead the gathering at Knapp (Linda has been sick lately and it would not be good to have her there coughing all over the residents.) He said “sure” and an hour later I returned to the house to pick him up. Our tradition is to serve pie and sing Christmas carols for the residents while they're enjoying their birthday dessert. And while we didn't have any kids to help us on account of school, I had plenty of help on hand from Refuge to cut the pie in slices and serve it while Charlie and I led the singing. There is something about singing carols for nearly 30 minutes straight that causes evil spirits whatever form they manifest to take flight. And to sing them to such an appreciative and accommodating audience warms your heart and makes the world seem right again. A slice of home-made apple pie afterward helps, too.

So at week's end my leg isn't much improved but I'm feeling myself again. Granted, I'd be better if I was heading out on my weekly long run tomorrow morning. But since that's not likely to happen I'll keep humming some bars of “Deck the Halls” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and reach for another slice of pie.

Strange music

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Luke 19:38, NIV

The day Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time – the day that we call Palm Sunday – is a festive, exhilarating one for his followers. At long last (or, at least they thought) Messiah had come. To live to see the day where he entered the City of the Great King had to be a thrilling one indeed akin to how many African-Americans felt the night Barrack Obama was first elected President. But while the crowds are shouting their “Hosannas!” so loud that some of the local religious leaders demand Jesus put a stop to it, the man of the hour is not smiling and waving like a newly elected official. He is sobbing almost uncontrollably. His moment of triumph at last arrives and all he can do is weep?

All four Gospels record the people shouting portions of Psalm 118 that day, a messianic psalm declaring a blessing on God's chosen leader (to chant it was akin to thumbing their nose at Caesar.) But as Luke tells it, as he descends the Mount of Olives and approaches the city someone raises the cry, “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” The last time we read that in Luke's Gospel was the night that Jesus was born. It is what the angels sang to the shepherds in the fields that night, a song that has been put to a plethora of melodies ever since. But the only one in the crowd that day that would have known that little tidbit would have been his mother, Mary. By the time he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey at the beginning of one of the most important weeks of the Jewish calendar, Joseph is dead and those anonymous shepherds long returned to their reclusive life of tending their flocks. Only she is the repository of those incredible circumstances - angelic visitations and pronouncements, shepherds and seers prophetically speaking - surrounding her son's birth. And like any mother, she fiercely clutches these memories and gathers them up scrapbook-like keeping them poignantly alive within her.

Amid all the hoopla being raised at his arrival into Jerusalem that day did the song the angels sang at his nativity spring to mind and caught up in the moment she blurted out the tune she had not hummed to him since his childhood? Or was it a premonition of something far more dire unintentionally reminding him of the trial ahead of him a few days later? Luke tells us that Jesus wept that day outside of Jerusalem because despite three years of ministry among them the people missed the boat, as it were; they “didn't recognize and welcome God's personal visit” (Luke 19:44, Msg.) That seed of rejection would bear the bitter fruit of wanton slaughter and destruction by Roman general Titus and his soldiers within a generation. Which, that being the case, makes “peace in heaven and glory in the highest” a very odd anthem to sing at such an occasion. But I don't think Luke's intent here is satire. Rather, it is irony, the kind that John spoke of in the great prologue to his gospel - “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11, NIV). He never looks like what we expect him to be but he's always what he is and, as John put it, “...to all who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God” (John 1:13, NIV) and that is something worth singing a Hallelujah Chorus or two. 

For many years now, our local paper, The Chetek Alert, runs a Christmas insert entitled 'Tis the Season. Among many other items they place within it, they ask local pastors to contribute a short devotional thought entitled "From the pulpit" (yeah, hardly original). This is my contribution for the 2012 edition of 'Tis the Season. 

Lighting Christmas

Every family I suppose has a collection of holiday rituals that are reenacted every turn of the year in either the preparation for Christmas or in celebration of it. Our family was no different. Like everyone else in our neighborhood (other than the Shultzs and the Shulmans, who were Jewish), we put up a tree and decorated it and hung up our stockings with care (but on a cardboard fireplace as our home was heated by an oil burner). We hung lights up on the evergreens in our front yard and as I recall it we had a wooden Rudolf-head that we lit by spotlight that hung on the side of the house. But as far as I knew, we were the only family on our block that had an Advent candle. An Advent candle is a candle with numbers on the side of it running from number 1 at the top to number 24 at the bottom. Every night during the month of December the candle is lit to mark the passing of days leading up to Christmas. I believe it is a custom unique to those of German descent (and that we were on my mother’s side).

First story of December

In our home the candle, which usually stood at the center of our kitchen table, was lit every night of December and then usually my mother (as my dad was usually working) would gather my brother and I - and later, my sister – together either at the table or –sometimes – in our bedroom before we went to bed and read to us a Christmas story. Every December 1st, we were read C. Clement Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Sometimes Dad was home and then he would read it and usually with a lot of panache and silliness. As the weeks passed leading up to December 25th we would hear stories of Christmas mice and other small critters, Frosty, Rudolf and the like. I remember one year my mom attempted to read all of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but both my brother and I were too young to appreciate this wonderful Christmas classic. But on December 24th, when the once beautiful candle was reduced to nothing but a stub, it would be lit one final time. Before we trundled out the door heading down to Racine to spend the late afternoon and evening there with my mom’s side of the family, Dad would read the account of Jesus’ birth found in the second chapter of Luke. Only then could our Christmas celebration commence.

The last (and best) story of Christmas



As far as my family is concerned, must see TV
on Christmas Eve



When my own children were very young, my mom would ship us an advent candle to set on our table and light every night of December. We did not usually read by it (our family reading still is done in the morning before Emma heads off to school) but when it was lit it would immediately bring me back to the days of my boyhood when my mom would read to me. You don’t get many years to establish a tradition when you have small children in the house: just like our family did when I was a boy, we still celebrate St. Nick’s Day on Dec 6 (See So this is Christmas); I still hide Father Christmas (even though I often have to prod my children these days to look for him now); and following the Service of Lights on Christmas Eve we will drive the neighborhoods of Chetek viewing the lights and then return home and watch the Hanna-Barbera’s version of The Nativity (Trivia: Helen Hunt is the voice of the Virgin Mary; here’s hoping the video tape lasts one more Christmas!) But sometime in the last six or seven years the Advent candle stopped being a part of the annual Christmas care package that Grandma Martin is still faithful to send to our kids (the company she always bought them from went out of business). Now I wouldn’t be surprised if I mentioned it missing they would look at me quizzically and say, “Advent what?”

I read to other small children these days – the kids of Roselawn Elementary here in Chetek – and when I read this morning to Mrs. Bowers’ kindergarten class from Greg Hildebrandt’s A Christmas Treasury (which contains wonderfully illustrated copies of both ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and The Nativity of Jesus) it will be my way of relighting that Advent candle that once burned every night in my boyhood home on Meadow Place. And by doing so I breathe in the aroma of Christmases past and all those yet to come.

Mary, Do You Know?

This past Saturday, members from Refuge and Chetek Alliance fellowships in our community pooled our talents and for 4 ½ hours on a beautiful moonlit night read Scripture, worshiped and interceded for our community. The site of this unique prayer gathering was the newly opened House of Prayer in Chetek located in the Courtyard right next door to the Hope and Anchor Coffeehouse. In 2009, our two congregations, with some help from two other fellowships in town, had put on a Live Nativity at Main Street Park a block away. The concept was simple: read the story from Scripture, involve some worship and add some sheep, a calf and an uncooperative mule, and from 6-11 p.m. with live actors reenact the story of the First Christmas. While few people came out to witness the event that had not really been the point: the purpose had been to simply read the Story over and over again our city one night in December. Last year the plan had been to reprise this but the historic December 11 blizzard changed all that. This year, the brain trust of Kari & Nicole felt led to take a different tack. Instead of just reading the appropriate passages from Isaiah, Matthew and Luke, why not read portions of the Jesus Story from all the Gospels and Revelation? So they put together 35 pages worth of Scripture readings interspersed with songs by the worship team made up of kids from Refuge and Alliance led by Kayla and on Saturday night gathered downtown at the House of Prayer.

The House of Prayer is not really a house – it's more like two rooms that are still being painted and decorated. So at the onset of the evening there may have been 50 people squeezed into that small space giving it the ambiance of a Christmas party more than a prayer meeting. Lots of cookies, bars and hot chocolate were on hand so that only added to the party-feel. Meanwhile out in the courtyard, a single speaker was broadcasting both whoever read Scripture on the outside and the worship team who played on the inside (cold air and playing musical instruments for an extended time do not make for a good combination.) After about an hour, both Kari and Nicole felt like a stop had to be made to the “party” and encourage people to start praying so they spoke with Rick who graciously reminded everyone what it was we were doing here. Eventually as some of the kids left and the readers kept reading and the worshipers kept worshiping, a distinct change occurred in the atmosphere inside the House of Prayer. It became more worshipful, more contemplative. Out in the courtyard, unexpectedly a couple of guys from Stringers, one of the drinking establishments in town, walked across the street and wanted to know what was going on. Troy, one of the guys from the local YWAM-Campus, had fun with that. But for the most part it was just Christians engaging in prophetic acts that not surprisingly went unheralded by those frequenting B&B next door or the aforementioned Stringers and Indianhead Bar across the street or Mary's Pub around the corner. I'm sure if we did anything it was raise eyebrows than raise awareness. But I'm okay with that – that first Christmas Luke when the shepherds ran in from the fields in their haste to find this One the angels had sung of they must have raised some eyebrows, too.

Maybe the weirdest moment of the night for me, however, was around 10 p.m. when Mary came in. Mary used to be one of our volunteers at The Garage, our local youth center and she and I, as members of the governing board, had occasion to work and interact together. She is a pleasant person who works in corrections (actually I know quite a few nice jailers) and has a heart for kids. And is a lesbian. For as long as I have known her (maybe 9 years or so) she and her partner have lived outside of Chetek. And Saturday night, exactly as Nicole was reading from the closing chapters of Revelation, she and her partner and her partner's mother walked into the House of Prayer. By that time, all of the little kids were gone and a very worshipful attitude had come upon the 20 or so people who were left. The atmosphere was anything but jolly. Most were praying silently with their eyes closed but in came this crew and headed right to the hot chocolate and began mixing some up. Mary saw where I was sitting and came over and after a quick embrace sat next to me. After the exchange of a few whispered pleasantries and bringing me up to speed on her life, I asked her: “So, Mary...what brings you here?” “We saw it in the paper and came to listen to the singing,” was her reply. There was not supposed to be any advertisement but someone at The Chetek Alert had taken it upon themselves to post a news release figuring we had forgotten to do so. So, right at the moment that people were quietly praying and Nicole was reading this -

"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood...”

- here I sat with Mary, while trying to listen to her but also wondering to myself if she was actually hearing what was being read. My guess is she did not. When I indicated to her that most of the singing was done (it really was), she figured she would join the rest of her party who, according to Kari, had left abruptly after grabbing their hot chocolate. We'd like to think it was the convicting power of the Holy Spirit at work that produced their rapid departure but it could have very well been that what they saw perplexed them – a woman reading from something outside while everyone sitting in Quaker-like silence on the inside. It probably was weird for them, too.

Since Saturday night I've wondered to myself, “What was that all about?” Was it just an odd coincidence? A freak occurrence that out of the thousands of locals who saw that news release only two people committed to what the Bible calls an immoral lifestyle actually stopped by to see the “show”? I didn't try and engage Mary in a conversation about eternal things. I just made small talk. Anyway, she caught me in the middle of my own prayer reverie when she came in and I'm usually not that quick on my feet. Maybe I was supposed to say something after all. Or maybe the Lord was putting a face on this passage of Scripture so that I would be provoked to care more and thus pray more for God's kingdom to come to our city for Mary's sake and her partner's sake and for all who live here who are in danger of being found on the outside when His kingdom ultimately comes in its fullness.

Waiting for Jesus...again

Most years, The Chetek Alert asks local pastors to submit messages to include in their annual 'Tis the Season Holiday insert. Here is my contribution for this year.

As a rule, we don’t like waiting. Whether it’s waiting in line or waiting to speak with a real person in customer service on the phone or a child waiting for Christmas to come, we don’t do waiting well. But waiting is one of the great themes of the Bible – Abraham and Sarah had to wait for the promised Isaac. Joseph – their great-grandson – had to wait for the strange dreams he had dreamt as a boy to come to their fulfillment in middle age. The people of Israel toiled insufferably in Egypt waiting for their deliverance for hundreds of years. Many of the notables in Scripture were schooled in waiting – the aforementioned Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Daniel. All of them found themselves between promise and fulfillment and the long wait between. As the pages of the Older Testament come to a close, the people of God now bereft of king and kingdom are waiting for the One to come who would at last Set Things Right.

Who knew?

I think of that night some 400 years later that Joseph and Mary show up in crowded Bethlehem looking for any place to lay their heads. As far as they are aware, they are the only ones that know that, to quote Paul, “the fullness of the time” (Gal 4:4, KJV) had come. Tonight He would be born of whom the prophets had spoken. At long last the Promise was on the brink of fulfillment. As far as all those people in David’s city were concerned, however, it was just another night in a little town already at capacity due to yet another government initiative to increase revenues for the Powers that Be. That was the Main Event as far as all those people were concerned - not what was going on in the cave behind the inn. The Census was as newsworthy as frac mining in Barron County but a baby born in Bethlehem? That happens all the time. Of course, now we know differently. We know that, to borrow a phrase from American scholar Thomas Cahill, a hinge of history was turning in that manger out back. God was making good on His promise to heal the woe of mankind and doing so in His way and in His sweet time.

We suck at this

That we moderns suck at waiting is a well-attested truth. Our conveniences attest of this: Microwave ovens, instant messaging, high speed internet – after all, who among us want to return to the good old days of dial-up (except maybe my parents who still live there)? But now we the people of God of the 21st Century find ourselves waiting, too. We join the Long Wait of the Faithful since the days that Jesus the Christ ascended to heaven outside of Jerusalem: we are waiting for His Return. In fact, many of the carols we sing at this time of year give voice not just to remembering His first advent but also longing for His second. I think of the final verse of “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” that says:

For lo! The days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heavens and the new earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Just like it was in Bethlehem “back in the day”, the Return of the King will be preceded with little fanfare. No crescendo in the musical soundtrack to announce that He is at hand. No tweet to declare His revival. It will be, in the words of the carol “Angels From the Realms of Glory”, “suddenly”:

Saints before the altar bending
Watching long in hope and fear
Suddenly the Lord descending
In His temple shall appear

In the meantime, while we wait, we worship and do what we must to remind each other that though that Day is long in coming, it will at long last come and He who was born in the stable will finally rule the nations.

One day...