Pastor's Corner: Are you waiting?

I don’t mind waiting. Well, sometimes I don’t mind waiting. Sometimes … sometimes I hate waiting. There are two main types of waiting. There is the type of waiting I don’t mind — the waiting where I can still do other things in the meantime. I don’t mind waiting for a certain day or an event, or really any type of waiting that still lets me work on other things while I wait. However, waiting rooms … waiting rooms are the worst.

Aren’t waiting rooms the worst? The chairs are never comfortable. The magazines, at least when there used to be magazines available, were always months old and sometimes sticky. Waiting rooms have become moderately more bearable with cell phones, but there is still always somewhere else I’d rather be and something else I’d rather be doing. I don’t mind waiting when I can be working on something else to pass the time, but when there’s nothing to do except wait? I’d rather be doing almost anything else.

In the church calendar year we have times of waiting, times of preparation. This Sunday, Nov. 28, we will celebrate the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is of course, a time of waiting. Yet waiting is not just in the church calendar, but throughout Scripture as well. Both in the Old and New Testament there were times of waiting. Whether waiting for the rain to stop or the rain to start again, waiting for the Gift of the Spirit, or for Paul to finish preaching, there is a lot of stories in Scripture about people waiting [Gen 6, 1 Kings 17, Acts 1, Acts 20].

Some of the longer waits in Scripture are in times of exile. In Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon, God tells the people how to wait: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:5-7, NIV). The instructions here are clear: the people are called to be active, to be good neighbors, to be good citizens, and to continue living their lives.

Even in times of waiting, God does not place us in a waiting room. Even during Advent, a season of waiting, we are not called to sit on our hands or twiddle our thumbs. We are called to live. We are called to prepare. We are called to be good neighbors, to serve those around us. We are called to live today and plan for tomorrow. Christianity is not for those who wish to sit back and cast judgement from lives of comfort. Following Christ is about serving side by side motivated by love, gratitude, and mercy.

In Gethsemane, immediately before his arrest, Jesus took Peter and two sons of Zebedee and left them close by while Jesus went to pray. Yet even during just one hour of waiting, when Jesus returned to find them sleeping he told them that they should have been watching and praying [Matthew 26:40-41]. Jesus calls us to active participation. Let this time of Advent be a time where we become active servants in the world by acting with and sharing the love and grace of our Lord. Amen.

Rev. Dan Robertson pastors at First Presbyterian Church of Fairbury