Who's Fault is it?
Advent I – December 3, 2023
Readings:
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
1 Thessalonians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
In Paul’s introduction to his first letter to the Thessalonians he intertwines two themes – God’s gifts and waiting. We are quite familiar with the mixing of these two in this season that leads up to Christmas. We especially see it in children who are impatiently waiting for that day when they get to open presents. I surmise many adults are not thinking about waiting. Their lives are all business – buying gifts and making preparations – all in an attempt to recreate some Christmas of the past. But then, waiting is not one of those gifts that most people have. It is not even a gift that people want. I point to the Covid-19 pandemic. We all had to learn to wait. It did take a bit but we all did it and after the pandemic was declared over we fell back into our old pattern of being impatient. We are not alone in this. Look to our Old Testament reading. There the Israelites are lamenting the fact that God had not made God’s presence known to them. They had waited to see God and when God did not show up they blamed God’s absence for their sin. They argued that, by hiding from them, God had caused them to sin. Our text from Mark also talks about waiting. This time it is about waiting for the return of Jesus. While we do need to be careful in how we read these texts. The whole of chapter 13 is a compilation by Mark of a variety of sources. Matthew and Luke both have these stories in their gospels but in different places and, often with different messages attached to them. Also, a part of the reading from Chapter 13 comes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament – a passage that is not found in the Hebrew text – and would not have been known by Jesus who only knew the Hebrew version of the scriptures. This shows us the early Christians struggled with waiting for the return of Jesus. Paul himself thought that Jesus would return in his lifetime. When Jesus’ return was delayed, the early church worked to find a solution. Mark’s text shows some of that work.
It would seem that the need to work out a solution came from the same impatience that the Israelites had and that we have. We, like everybody else, just don’t want to wait. Especially for the good things like God’s kingdom – the best there is. But maybe the wait is one of the gifts given to us. My dad used to tell an old joke that asks, “Why did God create time?” The answer was, “So everything didn’t happen at once.” A joke that has some truth in it. Time is a gift. If there were no time, there would be no waiting.
As these texts speak about waiting and our impatience they remind us that our wait is not to be wasted. Isaiah reminds us that God meets those who do right. He also reminds us that we are the product of God’s work. So, instead of blaming God for the things that have gone wrong, thank God for the things God has given you – your time, your possessions, and yourself. You do have an eternity in front of you so why worry and fret about the time in between. Instead use your wait-time wisely by living with the knowledge that God has given you the joy of salvation by the hard work of Jesus. That hard work assures you that the wait is worth it. Do not spoil the wait with inactivity. Instead, fill the time by sharing it with others and be thankful that God has given you this time in which you can experience the joy of God’s love given to you and shared with the world.