And Now Creation Waits…

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Romans 16:25-27 ; Romans 8:5-25; Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26

And now we wait. Christmas is still a few days off and the children are getting unruly – we always found ours shaking the packages and discussing what it could be that made that tinkling noise like the sound of broken glass. The entire house smells like Christmas, with pine needle smell and the smell of baked goods. Christmas carols are playing on the radio, Charlie Brown has been on television this week, and the ads practically scream – You’ve got to buy this product or your family will hate you!

But waiting appears to be part of God’s plan.

God created the world, Adam and Eve, put them in the garden, and then waited. After some amount of time, we don’t know whether it was a few days or hundreds of years, Eve listened to the serpent and our parents were kicked out of Eden.

God let the world develop for over a thousand years, growing more and more evil with time. But God waited. And then God acted – and it began to rain during Noah’s time and God made a new start.

After many more years, God visited Abraham and gave him a promise that he would have a son. But Abraham did not have his son for more than 15 years. During that time, he waited.

The sons of Jacob moved to Eqypt. There, they waited for four hundred years, becoming more and more enslaved. But finally, God sent them Moses to bring them out of Egypt.

Yet once more, after leaving Egypt, God had the Israelites wait in the wilderness for forty years before they could cross over the Jordan into the promised land. God had them wait.

Jesus was born in 4 BC. 10 years later, in 6 AD, Herod the Great died and the Romans began to rule Jerusalem and Judea more directly. But Jesus did not directly remove Roman rule. In fact, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD and after another rebellion, forbade Jews and Jewish Christians from entering Jerusalem except for one day a year beginning in 136 AD. All of God’s people waited. The ban was not lifted until 438 AD under a Christian Empress.

And now, we wait for the second coming of Christ, as people have since the day He ascended into Heaven.

What was it like for the early Christians? What was it like to wonder and expect the return of Christ in a few days, or perhaps a few months? When we read through the New Testament, particularly in the Book of Acts, we see a group of people who are excited about the immediate return of Christ. But as time passes, people begin to die away, awaiting the return. As time goes on, the Christian community begins to feel the need to put down on paper the stories of Jesus and the early Apostles so that a new generation will have an understanding of what is important for this life – and the next life. The New Testament was written expressly because God waited.

And finally, we have the Apostle John, who clearly writes his Gospel after the other three have been written, as if to say, “You’ve read the stories told about Jesus by the others. Now let me tell you what He was like – I was His best friend.” And then, even later, John writes from exile his vision of the far future, the Revelation of Saint John, which has told those that read it the two important facts: One day Jesus will return, and He will bring a victory over death to all who follow Him. The second fact is that we must wait.

And so we wait.

We wait for the return of Christ.

But while we wait, we look forward to something. We look forward for God’s glory to be revealed – in us!

Paul wrote in our Romans’ passage:

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

You see, the presence of the Holy Spirit within us brings God’s glory within us, potentially to be revealed, especially if we listen to that Spirit and follow the Spirit’s guidance. It is through following the Holy Spirit that great things continually happen in the church which allow God’s glory to shine forth, to “be revealed in us”.

In the late 1700’s, William Carey was a English cobbler – a shoe repairman. He heard about the great number of people in India who did not know about Jesus. He prayed and listened to the Holy Spirit and founded the first Missionary Board in the modern world – and then went to India as the first English missionary to India. He learned several Indian languages and established a foundation that is finally bearing fruit today – the Indian Church is growing like crazy among the poorest people in India. The glory of God has been revealed in William Carey.

In the early 1700’s, Jonathan Edwards was a mild-mannered pastor in Connecticut. He prayed and listened to the Holy Spirit and He began preaching a series of sermons in open places in towns. People wept and screamed and cried and came to know the Lord. Unlike what many movies have made of him, Edwards was not a charismatic preacher – He simply read the words off the paper – it was the words themselves, acting through the Holy Spirit of God that was revealed in the sermons of Jonathan Edwards that changed things. God glory was revealed in Jonathan Edwards.

Newspaper reports of Edwards’ revival made it back to England where they were read by an Oxford professor, the Reverend John Wesley who was praying for a way to revive the Church of England. Wesley and others decided to try the outdoor preaching route – the Wesleyan revival hit England and the Methodist movement took off. God’s glory was revealed in John Wesley and his brother Charles, who wrote over 4000 hymns.

On the night of February 3, 1943, enroute to Greenland, the US army transport Dorchester was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The electrical system immediately died and panic began. There were four chaplains on board who calmed down the men and helped them find life jackets and climb into lifeboats. When the lifejackets ran out, the chaplains gave other men their jackets. As the ship went under the water the chaplains sang hymns and said prayers. God’s glory was revealed that night to the 230 survivors and who knows how many of those of the almost 700 who died that night.

In 1949, a Youth for Christ minister was holding a tent revival in Los Angeles. He was praying and praying for God’s Holy Spirit to bring more people to know Christ. One day, a reporter from the Hearst Newspapers did a small story on him. The owner of the newspapers – William Randolph Hearst himself – saw the story and told his editorial staff to make the young preacher into a celebrity. They did and Billy Grahams Crusades took off, bringing hundreds of thousands of people to know Christ during the 20th century. God’s glory was revealed in Billy Graham, the unknown reporter, and in William Randolph Hearst.

What are you praying for? How are you listening to the Holy Spirit? How will God’s glory be revealed in your life?

We wait for Christ’s return.

But we do not wait alone…

Paul continues:

19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it,in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

Imagine that! The entire creation is waiting – the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the valleys, the deer, the bear, the turnips, the pine trees, the third rock from the left, the bluebirds, the raccoons, the porpoises, the trout, the blue whales, the coral reefs, the ocean itself – all are waiting for the children of God to be revealed – and who are the children of God?

We are. We who have been adopted into the family of God through belief in Jesus Christ.

We have freedom. We have glory.

For some people, Christmas is a time of dread, a time when we are forced to deal with memories we’d just as soon forget. For other people, Christmas is a time of worry, a time when we worry about the bills, about the cold, about our health as time passes onward.

But for those who believe in Jesus Christ – not just the “little baby boy, born in manger”, not just the great teacher who taught people a new way to live, but for those people who believe that Jesus Christ is the answer to everything in the world, if He will just be followed – Christmas is a miraculous time.

Christmas is that time when “all things old are made new again”. Christmas is the time when “the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” arrives upon the earth. Christmas is the time when eternity beckons to us and tells us about bad memories, “let it go, let it go”, for those memories and those events will not matter in a hundred years or ten thousand years, so “let it go” now and look forward with joy to what it is here and what is to come.

You see, “letting go” is a form of forgiveness. It is also a recognition that God is indeed in control of the Universe and has promised justice in the end. Do you trust Him with His justice? Do you trust Him with His mercy? All wrongs will be righted, all evils will be dealt with, restorations will be made, and joy will join with the followers of Christ.

As for loved ones we miss at this time of year, say a prayer for them, and continue your walk with God, that you may one day join them in your eternal home, in a new, body which will not decay, the type of body which your loved one who was in Christ will also have.

And then, after you have turned to the cross and said the prayer….stop waiting. Instead, turn back to the world and reach out into the sea of trouble that is the world, pulling people out of the sea who are drowning in despair, who are freezing in their alone-ness, who are dying because of their decisions. Lift those people up that they may sit beside you in the lifeboat of Christ and live now for Christ, even as you live for Christ, doing His will and becoming filled with joy while doing so.

All powerful God,

We wait. As with all of Your creation, we wait. But while we wait, we must live. Guide us each day in our living through your Word and Your Holy Spirit. Lift our spirits to do You will so we can experience Your joyful love. Give us energy and health in this dark time that we may look forward with joyful anticipation to Your Son’s arrival, whether the first time, the second time, or the 77th time. In the name of the Holy Infant of Bethlehem, the glorious King of the earth, the triumphant One who conquered evil and death for us, Jesus Christ, Your Son, we pray. Amen.