Nov 28th | Hope
Three cheers for Tim! …and a big thanks from me for affording me a much needed breather.
Tim did a masterful job of seamlessly putting together three essential Christmas ideas…Advent, Hope and Waiting.
He started with the illustration of the 250-mile road north through the wilderness of Ontario, Canada to his wife’s parents home. It proved to be an apt metaphor for the loneliness and uneventfulness of what our experience can be when we’re called to wait upon the Lord. Along that road you’ll find relatively small piles of rocks…man-made…whose purpose is uncertain…although they are called Ebaneezers, which is a concept we find throughout scripture associated with altars, statues, formations of different sorts that symbolize the thankful expression that, “the Lord has brought us this far,” while implying the faithful expression that, “He will also see us through to the end.” 1 Sam 7:10 is an excellent reference.
Advent has a similar sentiment. It is the four weeks of waiting preceding the arrival of Jesus. Isaiah 11 reflects the prophetic hope and waiting that permeated the Jewish history and Luke 2 captures the literal arrival of Jesus and the culmination of hope not only for the world, but for Simeon, the one privileged to one of the first rites in Jesus life.
Much, if not all, of Tim’s message invited us into the oft difficult space of waiting upon Jesus. We certainly need him to show up in different ways in our lives, but he rarely arrives on our time line. Nonetheless, we can certainly count on Jesus, and we can certainly trust that God although God is rarely early, he’s never late, but he’s always right on time.
Hope is a waiting space. Christian hope is a waiting space rooted and secured to something real and dependable…even historic. The very real arrival, life and resurrection of Jesus – the hope of the world. There are not many things truly worth waiting on, but we can faithfully declare that Jesus is.
What’s your best doctor’s waiting room story?
Generally, how well do you wait?
What stories do you have of waiting and being rewarded in the end? Did you see God in it?
What are you waiting on now? Who’s faithfully encouraging you in the wait?
How could faith in Jesus…or how does your faith in Jesus help you in the wait? What can we do to “actively wait?”
