December 1, 2002
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
The tradition in our house is to not open our Christmas gifts until Christmas morning. No peeking. Maybe a little shaking but definitely, no little tearing at the corners. We learned to wait until Christmas Day to see what Santa has brought us! Now there was one time when our kids were younger and they convinced us that all their friends were allowed to open one gift on Christmas eve—but that never became a tradition.
On Christmas morning, we would take turns opening gifts so that we can enjoy the surprise and hopefully delight (not shock) on each other’s faces. And when we get to the end of the packages, we realized that there were some in the back of the tree that we have forgotten. We have waited so long to open our gifts that we have forgotten that there were still some more.
We all hate to wait. We want things right away and that’s the kind of society in which we live. For example, let’s look at advertising. I’m not against advertising; in fact we are advertising our church by putting our name in bold blue ink in the yellow pages. I don’t even expect advertisers to be objective about their products. They exaggerate and paint their product in the best possible light. And when we watch commercials, we may learn a little information about the product but it’s more about inspiring us to buy the product.
Most commercials essentially say, “Hurry up and buy this!” “Buy now! You can’t make it another day if you don’t have one of these! You won’t have a merry Christmas unless you get this!” We are a society that says there’s something fundamentally wrong with you if you don’t have everything now. We don’t want to wait, and our impatience is often manipulated by the economy, driving us to live at about 120% of our resources. Where in our society do we get the message to be patient?
Scoffed at Waiting
Today’s Scripture comes from a short epistle credited to Peter. The church of Gentile Christians was possibly in Asia Minor and the period of the original disciples and apostles is now long gone in the past. Within its membership came scoffers. Some people became cynical and doubtful about Jesus’ promise of his return. Basically, some of these Christians became impatient waiting for Christ.
The early church expected Jesus’ return to happen within their life times. But generations came and went and nothing has happened. Even those believers who held onto these expectations have replaced their hand-written cardboard signs, “Jesus is coming soon” with ones made up of concrete and steel. The words are there, but the conviction is gone. And some in the church of 2 Peter now insist that the words not be said anymore.
They began to scoff at the idea of a Second Coming rather than be embarrassed by it. They got tired of waiting. We can see that this problem is not unique to just this church.
Waiting Time
Think back with me to December 26th or the 27th of last year. After opening up all of your Christmas gifts in the fastest time ever recorded, you asked yourself or promised yourself, “Next Christmas, I won’t be so materialistic. I don’t need everything on my Christmas wish list to be under the Christmas tree.” The biggest problem with that is—we then have to wait for some things we want.
Or we might say, “I will take more time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.”
But if we dedicate more of our time to understand the deeper meaning of Christmas, the amount of time that we have for shopping, partying and working would have to wait. We can’t do it all.
Or how many of you have said, “I will not add a clothing size to myself during this holiday season.” But in order for you to accomplish that, some of those delicious desserts will have to wait. We can’t eat it all today.
You see, waiting seems almost unAmerican. But the Scriptures this morning tells us that we need to wait. Waiting is a spiritual journey. Did you notice that we only lit one candle today? That’s because we have some waiting to do. There are two more purple ones and a pink one yet to go—and it will still not be Christmas when we light all four of the candles on the outer ring. We’ve got to wait until Christmas Eve to light the white Christ candle. We got some waiting to do.
Reasons to Wait
But after so many generations have come and gone, what evidence do we have that Jesus’ promise of his return will ever happen? You might say, “All right, you have convinced me to wait a bit more in getting all the stuff that I want or wait a little while for my food to digest and perhaps push off eating that rich dessert.” But after 2000 years, should we still be waiting for Jesus?
In 2 Peter, the writer was teaching this Gentile Christian church in Asia Minor that there’s evidence and reasons for us to continue waiting. First of all, he said that by the power of God’s word the heavens and the earth were created. By the same word the world was destroyed. It has happened, and it will happen, but next time not by water but by fire. The fire will dissolve the heavens and will disclose all that has been done on earth, both good and evil. Although most of us would rather not emphasize God’s day of judgment, Jesus’ return is prophesied this way. We wait today because we know that it has happened before. The power of God’s word is true today as it was in the past!
Secondly, God’s time is unlike our time. We say there’s 24 days until Christmas. For God, our 24 days may be 24 years. Judgment is God’s business and will be accomplished on God’s schedule. What we might consider to be a long wait may merely be a moment in time for another. With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.
And lastly, throughout the Bible God is portrayed as patient, long-suffering, giving wrongdoers second chances. We might see God as too slow for our fast-paced world. Let’s make a decision and move on, we say. But the Lord is only being patient with us. God does not want any of his people to perish so he is patiently waiting for us to repent and to come to know him as our God. Instead of being cynical and scoffing at God’s slowness, we need to thank God for what seems to be a delay but in reality is a demonstration of God’s patient grace.
While Waiting
Since the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night; in other words, quietly, when we least expect it, according to God’s schedule and not ours, what should we be doing while we are waiting? How should we wait for a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness is at home?
In 2 Peter we are told to strive to be found by him at peace and spotless while we wait.
During this Christmas season, try to be at peace with God. One of my ministries with you is the caring for the dying. It happens often enough. As the dying come near to death’s door they find themselves having settled and set straight all the paths and peoples in their lives. They tie up loose strands, they finally open all those tightly wrapped gifts, they say, “I love you” to special people, they ask for forgiveness, and give forgiveness, then they discover, unexpectedly that they are at peace with God, their Maker.
To be at peace with God is to attempt such human feats daily. To forgive, to be forgiven, to love and say, “I love you.” Taking time to fix the broken parts in our lives matters, to heal the wounds, and if not possible to heal, then to apologize and love. To be at peace with God may be to be ready at any moment to go home to God.
Jesus warns us, that before we lay our gift on the altar, we should be reconciled to our sister and brother. We ourselves are the treasure, the gift, laid on God’s altar. To be ready for that daily, one must seek reconciliation. If it is peace that we want, we must reconcile with those we’ve hurt or been hurt by. My prayer for you is that as you gather your family and friends together for Christmas this year, that you take the time, have the patience to wait and listen to each other. Soon you will be at peace with God because God has found you to be at peace with one another.
While we are waiting, we are to be without spot or blemish. Peter is not talking about moral or sinless perfection. The word is a reference to a stain on our clothes. When we step into the world or in God’s presence, our clothes should be clean. We should be careful not to suffer the embarrassment of preaching about the stain on someone’s clothes when our own garments are soiled with the stain of bad conduct and shady dealings.
The world is looking for people who are able to live without staining themselves, without puking all over themselves, without spilling moral filth on their pants. While Christmas is the season Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christmas holiday has prevailed and overwhelmed almost every aspect of our world. It’s hard to not be confronted with Christmas at this time of the year. And for those who practice a different religion from Christianity, this season can be downright abusive. We must allow for and respect differences to exist. Being spotless means that we should be careful not to preach about the stain on someone’s clothes when our own garments are embarrassingly soiled.
Two Kinds of Waiting
There are different kinds of waiting. Some waiting is passive. But there is also active waiting. A girl who stands at a bus stand waiting for a bus to arrive will experience one kind of waiting, a passive waiting. That same girl at the same bus stand hearing the sound of a parade that is just out of sight will also wait, but it will be a different kind of waiting, full of expectation, a waiting on tiptoe, an active waiting.
A fisherman finds it burdensome to wait for spring to arrive and fishing season to begin, but once he is fishing, he does not find it a burden to wait for the trout to rise to his fly, and in many ways the waiting itself is delicious. The difference is that one kind of waiting is passive and the other is active.
We can choose to wait passively for the gift of faith. We can live our lives as if the world were a waiting room, flipping through dated magazines and filling our time with the tasks of the day. We can as we say, “Do Christmas” again like we have done in the past—going through the routines and occupying our time with shopping and parties. Such passive waiting does not require much in the way of our attention or energy. We are concentrating only on our agendas and assuming that if God wants to find us, he will know where to look.
Or we can activate our waiting for the gift of faith. We can wait as the Psalmist waits, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning (130:5-6). It is waiting that is filled with eager expectation. It is through this kind of active waiting, through what the Psalmist called, “waiting for the Lord,” that we can be prepared to receive the gift of faith.
Waiting for Christmas
On this first Sunday in Advent, we begin waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus. Those who wait passively for faith need not be concerned with prayer, worship, mission, Bible study, or any of the other ways in which one acts out the Christian faith. But those who wait actively for faith will be involved in all of those things. It is a waiting that is spent in being at peace with each other and seeking to be spotless instead of criticizing others.
This will be my 53rd Christmas. I will leave the few Christmas gifts that I have under the tree until Christmas Day just like I have done in the past. And in a very small way, this tradition will remind me to wait for God’s gift of Jesus Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger. And while I wait, God is waiting for me and God is waiting for you to be active in the world—for the angels will be bringing us good news of great joy for all people.
Let us pray.
Creator God, teach us to be as patient with your plan for the world as you are patient with us in our journey of faith. Lead us toward the confession of our shortcomings and forgive us so that we may make room for Christ in our lives, especially during this Advent season. We will wait for Christ’s coming with hope and eager anticipation. Amen.