Today is the 2nd Sunday of our Advent series, “The Gift.”
During this season, we are looking at four very important words based on our appointed scripture readings that can help us prepare for the gift of Christmas. These four “W” words are Wait, Want, Wonder, and Watch.
Last Sunday, we began by looking at the importance of waiting as we prepare for Christmas. On that 1st Sunday of Advent, we heard a scripture reading from the Prophet Jeremiah who lived 600 years before the birth of Christ.
They were living during a very bleak time because of an invading army. And in the midst of this time of uncertainty and fear, Jeremiah announces this word of hope, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and in that time, I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
In other words, Jeremiah was encouraging God’s people to be patient and to wait because God is faithful.
What makes this scripture reading so incredible is that Jeremiah was proclaiming this word of hope while he was in prison! This reminds me of the Apostle Paul who wrote four of his letters while he was confined in prison. So, the person who is suffering the most is the one who is the most hopeful in reminding the people that God is faithful and will lead them into a glorious future.
Not only was Jeremiah in prison while announcing those words for the people to wait patiently for God to save them, it would be another 600 years before that promise would be ultimately fulfilled through the birth of Jesus Christ.
The four weeks of Advent that we are in now are nothing compared to the several centuries that the people of God needed to wait before the coming of Jesus into the world. That first Sunday of Advent reminds us that we can wait upon God because as Jeremiah tells us, “The days are surely coming.” The days are surely coming when God will make all things new. And so, it’s important for us in this Season of Advent to practice the discipline of waiting upon God because God will be faithful.
And for today, our Advent word is the word, “Wanting.” What does it mean to want the gift that God promises to give to us?
For this we turn to our appointed Old Testament scripture reading for today, this time from the Prophet, Zephaniah. Sounding a lot like the other Old Testament prophets who encouraged God’s anxious people to hang in there, Zephaniah uses very descriptive words about the glorious future that God has in mind for them. Zephaniah uses words like “sing aloud,” and “rejoice and exult.”
The prophet tells the people to celebrate their faith in the present because the Lord is near! How near is the Lord? Near enough that we are already called to sing and rejoice. Now, that’s near!
According to Zephaniah, this is not a time to “wait until your chickens are hatched,” as the old saying goes. Consider them hatched because the Lord is near!
The other beautiful picture that Zephaniah offers us about wanting God’s gift is when he shares this good news with the people, “at that time, God will bring you home and our your fortunes will be restored.” This is what the people were wanting, knowing that God was providing them a home.
I don’t know about you, but I want that for Christmas this year. I want to feel at home. Feeling at home is probably the best Christmas gift we can ever receive.
Penny and I like to watch house hunter type shows. We were watching one of these shows that takes place in the UK. The realtor shows couples three houses from which to pick. Once in a while, the couple ends up not choosing any of them because they’re just not the right house for them.
A lot of times couples will choose the best house of the three even though the the house they choose doesn’t include everything on their checklist. After a lot of back and forth, they finally decide to buy one of those homes.
But for one of the episodes, a couple found their dream house, the house they always wanted. The first two houses were OK, not great, but when they got to the 3rd house and before they even made it to the front door, the wife started tearing up, saying how beautiful the outside of the house was.
Then they went inside the house, and she cried even more because it was the kitchen she always wanted and then the other rooms were just what she had always dreamed about for her future home. After they were done walking through the house, the realtor asked how much they thought the list price was.
Thinking that it would be well over their budget, the realtor said that it was actually 50,000 lbs less than their budgeted amount. At that point, this woman broke down with even more tears of joy. She had found the house of her dreams. It was great for us to watch her expression.
I think this is describing the joyful reaction that Zephaniah is saying that we can have even before we receive the gift. “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! At that time, I will bring you home.”
No wonder that our New Testament lesson is from Philippians, chapter 4 where we read, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. The Lord is near.”
It would be one thing if Paul would have written this while he was on vacation somewhere on a tropical beach, but he wrote these words while he was confined in a prison cell for his faith. The Apostle Paul knew that whether he was in prison or out of prison, the good news is that we are always at home with God. “The Lord is near,” Paul writes. No matter what we may be facing, the good news is that the Lord is near.
It was during my sophomore year of college when I discovered what I had been wanting in my life. Struggling with poor grades and a feeling of no direction, I suddenly realized that what was missing in my life was right there in front of me, a relationship with God.
Even though I had grown up in the church and was nurtured in the faith all my life, somewhere along the way, I had forgotten to allow God to be at the center of my life. And without God at the center of my life, I didn’t feel any sense of peace or purpose. I was feeling lost.
And so, one day during my 2nd year in college, I literally fell to my knees in desperation and told God that from that point on, I would seek to allow God to lead the way and to be first in my life.
When I got up from that prayer, what had been a huge weight on my shoulders was suddenly lifted. And that weight was replaced with an indescribable sense of peace and an assurance that I wasn’t alone. God was with me.
It was through that difficult and challenging time during those first two years of college that I realized what I really, really wanted in life. I thought that I just wanted to know what my college major should be or what my career path should be, but I discovered what I really wanted the most in my life was a relationship with God. That was what I was missing the most in my life.
After I said that prayer, I wanted to do what Zephaniah is inviting us to do and that is to sing aloud and to rejoice and exult with all of my heart. I wanted to do what the Apostle Paul wrote from a prison cell and that is to rejoice in the Lord always.
Several years ago, during my daily devotions, I felt led to answer the spiritual question that we are each being asked today. “What do I really want?”
I thought about all of the things that I thought I wanted as I was preparing for the new day ahead. But after some time thinking there in my study about that question, it really came down to this. After some prayer and reflection, here is what I ended up writing down,
“What do I want? I want a faith centered on Christ, informed through study, sustained by prayer, lifted in worship, fed through the Sacraments, strengthened in weakness, contextualized through experience, open to change, manifested through serving, and welcoming to all.”
And here’s how I know that this is what I really wanted, because in that moment all of my anxieties, worries, and concerns were replaced by an overwhelming sense of God’s indescribable peace.
I invite you sometime today or this week, to take some time and respond to this same important question, “What do you want?” We don’t ask ourselves this question nearly enough but it’s one of the most important questions we can ever ask ourselves. It’s also a good question to encourage other people to ask of themselves as well.
When you know deep down what you really want, it can lead us to sing aloud and rejoice. And if that’s true for us now in the middle of December, just think what Christmas is going to be like when we will be invited to receive the greatest gift we can ever receive.
