What Are We Waiting For?

There was a man whose dog died of kidney failure. Not long afterwards a neighbor inquired if he would like another dog. He knew of a family who was seeking to give a puppy away. "Not quite this soon," the man replied.

Several weeks passed and he asked his neighbor if the puppy had been placed yet; he was ready to take it. "Oh, it froze to death," the neighbor said. What happened was, the family seeking to give the puppy away didn't permit animals in the house. During a severe cold spell the puppy looked for shelter. It pawed its way inside the storm door and then got wedged between the storm door and the main door to the house. It froze to death before anyone opened the door and found it.

I don't know how that man felt when he heard about what happened. But I'm a dog lover. And the story makes me heartsick. What a sad, lost opportunity -- for the man as well as for the dog. And what a metaphor that story can be for life and for this season of Advent in which we find ourselves. The puppy was caught "in between," much as we are in life. He was caught between the storm door and the main door to the house. He was caught, trapped, in that time of waiting and hoping and yearning for something better, for something more, waiting for that door to be opened. And so are we, now, waiting between two doors, waiting for Christ's coming not only as a child in the manger, but for "his coming again in glory."

In our lessons for this second Sunday in Advent we meet our forebears in the same place -- between two doors, so to speak. In our first lesson God's people are trapped in exile in a foreign land, in Babylon. They yearn for deliverance, for a return to all that is familiar and dear. And in the image painted in Isaiah 40, an image made so familiar by the glorious tenor aria in Handel's Messiah, they hear a word of promise: it won't be this way forever. Israel has served her term. Her warfare is accomplished. Relief is coming. Get ready. Prepare the way.

In our second lesson, we meet our forebears in the faith perplexed. Perplexed because they believed Jesus would return very soon. What's taking so long? They find themselves trapped between the door of Jesus' first coming, and the door of Jesus' second coming. And they are confused about what they should do while they are waiting.

If it had been our dog Carl trapped between those two doors, I doubt he would have died there. He's a survivor. He's already been a stray dog at least once. That's how we got him, through the Humane Society. And when he wants someone to open the door, he scratches on the door loud enough so we can hear him. He hastens our coming to the door by his behavior. And so are we to do the same, to hasten the coming of the day of the Lord -- at least according to our lessons today. When Henri Nouwen, of blessed memory talks about our second lesson from 2 Peter, he says, we are not only to look for the coming of the day of the Lord, but also to try to hasten it! This is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life -- knowing full well that God is coming in God's time and not in ours, on God's terms and not on ours. Peter nevertheless urges us to work hard with great fervor to hasten the Lord's coming. Here it becomes clear that our action is part of God's coming. In a mysterious way the realization of the new heaven and the new earth depends on us. Our waiting is not a passive waiting but an active waiting. God's promise is not hanging above us in the air, but is deeply embedded in our everyday life. Action to hasten the coming of the Kingdom is a grateful response that flows from our awareness of God's presence in this world. Jesus' entire ministry was one great act of thanksgiving to his Father. We are called to participate in that very ministry.

And so in our first lesson, the prophet reminds us that our waiting is not passive. Those words are echoed in our Gospel by John the Baptist: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. The valleys will rise to meet him, the hills bow down to greet him.

So what are we waiting for? It strikes me that many of us wait as if we are the dog that freezes to death trapped between the two doors. We live as though waiting is the end of the story. We live as if the door will never open. We live as if the door has never opened. And yet, we're gathered here today because we know better. We know that for us, being trapped between two doors is not the end of the story. We know that the door will be opened, and that we are called to hasten that opening. Yet too often we seem to live our daily lives as if God were absent.

We put off our praying and doing because we're waiting too. We're not waiting for Jesus. We're waiting for our immediate problems to get cleared up. We can't, or we don't, see him present right where we are. And so we catch ourselves making resolutions like, "I'll give time to prayer when the children grow up; when I no longer have to work so hard; when I can finally deal with personality problems at the office." Our response to life is to put our energy into surviving the difficulties of the moment. When these are settled, we bargain, we'll be able to encounter the presence of God. Someone told me about the guy who was running late for an important appointment and he desperately needed to find a parking place -- immediately. So he started praying. "Please God," he said, "find me a parking place right now and I promise I'll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life." And sure enough, minutes later, a parking place appeared. And then the man said, "Never mind, God. I just found one."

What are we waiting for? If you're at all like me, your expectations for God are probably either way too high or way too low, or both. Either we're waiting for thunder and lightning and blatant miracles, or we assume that God has far too much to do than to be concerned about you or me. And so we go about our business as if God isn't there. Then the prophet Isaiah calls to you and me today to straighten out that crooked thinking. Let the valleys of your low expectations rise so you can meet him. Let the hills of your high expectations bow down so you can greet him. Cultivate what Bernadette Roberts calls "everyday God." See with eyes of faith. Balance praying and doing. Make the rough places plain. People graced with eyes of faith do not wait until everything is ideal or peaceful before relating to God. People graced with eyes of faith see a rough place, an impossible problem. And they ask, "What is God saying to me or asking me to do?" Then they listen. And they take the next step in the right direction -- just the next step, not the whole journey.

This past week I met several of you stuck between two doors. Carol Gerardi was there for an hour earlier this week when the specialist's office in Boston called and told her they had to cancel the appointment she had been planning for months to fly to on Thursday. A door opened, though, and they worked something out. Val Revitzer is exiled at St. Joseph's Hospital in Pontiac with a diagnosis of liver cancer and several fractures in her back. Grace Schroeder and Art May both thought they were getting better and have had relapses of one sort or another. The Mertins and Vasko families, and the family of Nancy Tierney both experienced deaths in the family this week. So they are between the doors of memory and hope.

In Advent we collectively return to that place between the two doors to remember and to rehearse, in slow motion -- to be strengthened, to be comforted -- to practice waiting prayerfully, patiently, confidently, expectantly and actively. We rehearse this time in between so we will know how to hasten Jesus' coming when it's our turn to be exiled. And we rehearse this time in between so we will know how to be with our brothers and sisters when it's their turn. The door will open. The door opens again today as we come to the Table of our Lord and see firsthand that in fact he does come: in the bread, in the wine, in the Word, in you and in me, gathered around a table where the uneven ground has become level, and the rough places a plain. AMEN

Pastor Dana Runestad, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Livonia, Michigan

Second Sunday in Advent, 4 December, 2005, Year B Isaiah 40:1-11; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

Sources:

Father Thomas Keating, "Living As If God Were Absent," Chapter 2, Events in Jesus' Ministry from Awakenings, http://www.centeringprayer.com/awakenings/awake02.htm

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Our Light and Our Salvation, Advent Reflections from the Works of?, Creative Communications for the Parish, 2004, pp. 4 and 5.

Sacred Heart League, ADVENT: A Time of Preparation Week2: Saturday, http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/Advent/12th.html

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