Creekside Church Sermon of December 1, 2002 "What Are You Waiting For?" Mark 13:32-37	Ginny Haney Guest Speaker
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Then…we have several for stereos and CD players. They are just the right size to get lost. This one I keep on my dresser so I can turn off the radio when I leave in the morning without walking all the way into the bedroom. One we added this summer was this neat one for a fan. It came in VERY handy. You can control the speed, whether it oscillates or stays still, several different air patterns and you can even put it on a timer. And of course, another common one - the garage door opener. Don't even have to get out of your car to open the garage door. I'd trade all the others in for this one any day. I don't have one, but some cars have automatic remote openers and even starters so your car is nice and toasty by the time you get in it.

Now, how many of you have watched a TV show you didn't really care for just because the remote was out of reach or out of sight? How many of you would even buy a TV if it didn't have a remote control? We live in a day and age where we want everything the easy way…now! Drive through restaurants, drive through banks, drive through pharmacies, if we have to work to get it, we don't want it. We even buy things on The Internet and let someone else deliver it right to our door.

In the midst of all this "we want it the our way now", what happens to our relationship with God? Do we want it quick and the way we want it? If we can't find the remote control, we just deal with whatever's on the tube at the moment? If it doesn't come easily, do we just forget it? I looked up the word "remote" in the dictionary and it had the definitions I expected: far apart; far distant in space; situated at some distance away. But, the most relevant definitions for us with our text for today are: distant in time or far off. The people of the Old Testament had been told to expect a Messiah. Then they waited, and waited, and waited….The event they were waiting for seemed very remote.

But, interestingly enough, when I use an online concordance to look up the word remote in The Bible, the response I got was, "Sorry, the word remote doesn't occur in the King James Version". Now, I realize it probably has something to do with semantics and translations, because I did find the word remote in a few other versions; but it struck me as an odd statement that in spite of the fact that the people waited for more than eight hundred years for a Messiah, the word remote isn't in the King James Version. They may have felt that God was remote or that the coming of a Messiah was a long way off, but maybe they just weren't paying attention.

Last spring, I bought some seeds that came with the fertilizer and plant food right with it. It was in a nice plastic container with a handle and all I had to do was prepare the dirt and pour the seeds, cover them up, water them and joila' - flowers! I waited, and waited, and waited. Nothing happened. I had just about given up when I noticed something growing. My husband noticed about the same time and wondered what I had planted there. But it didn't take me long to realize that what was growing was clearly a squash or a melon and not the lovely Impatiens I had expected. The plant grew and spread out and soon covered the entire area, but it was not the colorful flowers I had wanted.

I imagine the birth of Christ was somewhat like that. The seed had been planted, covered and watered for a long time. But when something finally appeared, it wasn't the royal figure the people had been waiting for. Instead, it was a baby - born to an unwed teenager - in a stable, no less! The people nearly missed the most important event in history because they were looking for something else.

The thirteenth chapter of Mark tells us that we need to be prepared; we need to keep watch because we do not know when the master will return. But what about what Jesus has to offer to us in our lives today? The grace and mercy of our Lord is available to us now - today - this moment. Are we missing the kind of relationship we could be having with Jesus today because we are looking for something else? Do we spend so much time anticipating what is to come that we are missing what is here now?

I read a delightful story in the book "While We Wait" that the Overcomer Class is studying. It is about a golden retriever name Luther. Luther loves to chase moles, chipmunks and squirrels when his owner takes him for walks in the park. One autumn morning, a squirrel fell out of a tree, right in front of Luther. All he had to do was pounce. He was astounded and overjoyed. From that moment on, Luther has believed that squirrels fall out of trees. The next morning, and many mornings after, Luther approached that same stand of trees with his eyes lifted, aquiver with anticipation. He would stop every few feet and look up in eager attention, waiting for a squirrel to fall in front of him.

The author of this book goes on to ask the question,
"What if you and I walked through life with that kind of expectation, waiting for God to show up in the midst of our daily activities, for gifts of grace and healing to fall into our lives so close that we can reach out and touch them? What would be different if we lived that way? Living in hope and expectation does not mean we do nothing."

"Now, Luther hasn't given up chasing squirrels, but he no longer stops every day to wait under those trees. But he also still pauses from time to time to gaze longingly at the branches overhead. Who knows? It could happen again. And when it does, Luther will be ready, because he knows that sometime squirrels do fall out of trees. He knows and appreciates with all the energy of his nature that wonderful, unexpected, and totally undeserved gifts can come into our lives."

This time of year, we become more anxious and the word hurry and the word wait are ones we hear a lot, but we don't like to hear them. Our schedules get so hectic and filled with the hustle and bustle of Christmas. We hurry to get Christmas shopping done…only 24 more shopping days until Christmas; quantities are limited so shop early, hurry up this year and get your shopping done before the sales tax goes up… and then - but wait!! I don't have all my shopping done; I can't find the right gift for Uncle Fred; I don't have all my gifts wrapped, yet….the kids are saying, "I wish Christmas would hurry up and come". And we're saying, "But wait! I'm not ready yet!

We are sandwiched between the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago and the anticipated return of that same Messiah. We are experiencing the same waiting game the people of the old testament did so long ago. And if we're not careful, when the time comes we are going to find ourselves saying, "But wait! I'm not ready, yet!"

I would like you to get your pew bibles out and look up Psalm 27. We're going to read together in a moment. Mark 13 says, "Don't let him find you sleeping when he arrives without warning. What I say to you I say to everyone: Watch for his return!" And that return will be joyous. I know people that are so consumed with when that return will be and "waiting" that I often wonder if they are missing what is right in front of their noses, now.

Turn to Psalm 27, verses 13 and 14. I had no idea when I chose this until I typed it in the bulleting that it was the text for the song that the Worship Planning Committee chose for you to sing at the end of the service. God does work in mysterious, but wonderful ways sometimes. Let's read together. "I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Another version reads: "Yet I am confident that I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living." Isn't this what we should all be doing? Watching for the Lord in the land of the living? Watching for and reveling in the grace and the joy of what the Lord has to offer us here - today - now - in Elkhart, Indiana?

The concept of time is difficult to grasp, even for adults who've been around a while. I'm sure you've all had moments that seemed to drag by at a snails pace and you wanted to shout, "Hurry up!" And you've probably also felt the same frustration when the clock seemed to race by like a blurred Roadrunner in a TV cartoon and you wanted to shout "Wait!" To me, time really seems to be proportionate to how much or how little we are anticipating something.

My grandson turned six a couple of weeks ago and he was quite anxious for the big day to come. The evening before, we were at church and he said to everyone he saw, "Tomorrow is my birthday." But I wasn't really sure he understood what "tomorrow" meant. He received a present from my father and we took it home with us. Jozef stayed at my house that night, and before he went to bed, he wanted to open the present. I told him he had to wait until tomorrow and open it on his birthday. He wasn't very happy with that option. Tomorrow still seemed a long way off. I said to him, "The sooner you get to bed and go to sleep, the sooner tomorrow will come. When you wake up it will be your birthday." (Ever used that one before?) That seemed to do it and he willingly went to bed.

The next morning, I woke him with "Do you want to open your present?" Never saw him wake up so fast in his life. After he opened the present, he received a phone call. Some of you may know Naomi Waggy from Goshen City. She calls everyone on their birthday and sings to them. I could hear her talking to him and she asked him how old he was and reiterated the fact that today was his birthday. I hadn't been sure he understood what "tomorrow" really was, but I knew he understood "today" when he said, "Today is right now." The day he had been waiting for was right now. (By the way, Jozef was rather upset when I told him he still had to go to school on his birthday. "But what about all my presents?" he said)

Even if we don't understand what tomorrow really is. When it's really going to come, we do have today - we have right now - to make the most of our relationship with Jesus and enjoy the gifts he offers us. And in this case, I am not condoning the advice I gave Jozef when I told him to go to sleep and when he woke up, it would be his birthday. The scripture says "Do not find me sleeping". Today is right now! We must realize that and cultivate the seed that was planted so long ago and watch it grow into life.

William was forty years old and had lived all of his life in a wheelchair with severe cerebral palsy. He was cared for by his brother and sister-in-law. He had always had a manual wheelchair and after hours of paperwork and phone calls, that had turned into several months, I secured approval from Medicaid for a power chair for William. I spent quite a bit of time with William and his family during this process and in spite of the hassles, I felt a great deal of satisfaction about the final outcome.

The day the wheelchair finally came in, I called William's brother and they wasted no time in coming to pick it up. William's brother lifted him and put him in the new wheelchair. His shriveled little body seemed dwarfed in the chair, but he was grinning from ear to ear. If you have ever had any experience with people with Cerebral Palsy, you know that their movements are somewhat exaggerated; so William's crooked smile seemed all the more joyful. I showed William how to work the controls of the wheelchair. I showed him the little pictures by the joystick - one a turtle for slow speed and one a rabbit for - you guessed it - fast speed. I told William he better stick with turtle speed until he got used to it so he didn't run anyone over. His crooked smile beamed at me.

As they left the store, William carefully maneuvered the chair through the aisles and out the door. I walked up the steps to my office area feeling somewhat smug and more than a little relieved that the whole process was over. A large window by my desk overlooked the sidewalk and the parking lot and I watched as William moved down the sidewalk at turtle speed. When he got to the sidewalk that was perpendicular to that one, he turned right - somehow I wish I could play for you the video that's in my head so you could se this scene - suddenly, William kicked into rabbit speed and zoomed down the sidewalk. When he got to the end of the sidewalk, he twirled the wheelchair around and his crooked, exaggerated smile expressed such joy that I can't describe the feeling that came over me. All at once felt bad for my smugness and knew that every minute that I had spent working on this had been worth it, not just for William but for me.

William had waited forty years for the mobility and freedom that this wheelchair provided him. And the immeasurable joy that he expressed told the whole story. My last glimpse of William was of him doing donuts in the parking lot. His dream of mobility was no longer remote, it was a reality.

The joy that awaits us when Jesus returns will far surpass the joy William felt as he spun around in his wheelchair. But some of that joy is available to us now - today - while we are here in the land of the living. My prayer for each of you this Advent Season is that you will anticipate the celebration of Jesus' birth like Luther waiting for a squirrel to fall out of a tree and that you experience the joy of William running at rabbit speed in his wheelchair. For in the words of my grandson, today is right now. What are you waiting for?

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