Advent is a time of great
adventure. It’s a time of excitement,
yet also a time of waiting. It’s a
festive season that feels like no other time of year. Along with the church sanctuary, most homes
are being decorated, but the real time of celebration is not yet here. And so we wait. This is a difficult thing to do—especially for
the impatient and the immature. I
remember when I was a child, trying to stay up all night and wait for Santa
Claus. But somehow, no matter how long I
waited, no matter how I tried to keep my eyes open, I would always end up
waking up with a start on Christmas morning—having missed the nighttime visit
of Old Saint Nick. Jesus tells us to
keep watch and wait, to not grow weary but to be alert.
Advent is a time of adventure. The word advent
means “important arrival.” During
the Advent season, we wait for the important arrival of the Christ child. We also remember that Christ will come again—and
we wait patiently for His return. The
word advent is related to the word adventure.
Adventure means “to risk the loss of something.”[i] Advent is a time of waiting, but waiting can
be tough because it seems like we’re risking loss while we’re waiting. On the contrary—purposeful waiting, godly
waiting, means resting in the knowledge that God will bring His purpose about
in the right time. The adventure of
Advent isn’t in striving, but in patiently trusting God. Advent Calendars and Advent candles help us
with this work of waiting. They help us
mark time and remember that God’s Advent will come.
Some things are worth waiting for, but
they definitely need to come at the right time.
Like the birth of my second grandchild a few weeks ago—Jonah was
definitely worth the wait! In the same
way, Christmas is worth the wait. You
wouldn’t want it to come prematurely. If
people could decide to have Christmas anytime they wanted, then 25th December
wouldn't be as much fun. It's good to
wait and to enjoy things together.
Mark’s thirteenth chapter is all about
watching and waiting—not for Christmas to come, but for the greatest adventure of
all. The chapter is called Mark’s Little
Apocalypse. It is divided into two
parts. The first part is Jesus’ answer
to one question. The second is Jesus’
answer to another. Verses 1-4 (NASB) say:
As He was going out of the temple, one of His disciples *said to
Him, “Teacher, behold what
wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” 2 And Jesus said to him, “Do
you see these great buildings? Not
one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down.”
3 As He was sitting on the
Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter
and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign
when all these things are going to be fulfilled?”
In verses 5-23, Jesus answers the first
question, “When this destruction will come?”
His answer brings chills to the spine.
He speaks of false christs, betrayals, wars, and famines. He tells his followers to flee when they see
an abomination in the temple, for the end is near. That end came about in 70 AD, when Rome
destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. In
verses 24-27, Jesus answers the second question, “What will be the sign when
all these things will be fulfilled?” Matthew 24:3b (NASB) renders these two
questions more clearly: “Tell us, when
will these things happen, and what will
be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” Jesus’ first answer is about events that
must happen within a generation. The
second answer is about events that will take place at the end of the age.
Many people get hung up on verse 30,
which says, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away
until all these things take place.” The
NASB conveniently adds a footnote which points out that the word Jesus used, genea, can also be translated as “race.” In other words, since Jesus has just finished
talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, the fall of the temple, and a
threat to God’s people, He wants to assure His disciples that God’s people will
not be utterly destroyed. This verse
does not indicate that verses 24-37 must be interpreted as being within a
literal generation of Jesus’ prediction.
At the end of the age, Jesus says the
sun and moon will be darkened. Angels
will act as reapers, gathering God’s faithful.
The last day, the day of judgment, will be a day of fear for the faithless,
but a day of delight for the redeemed.
In verse nine, Jesus says, “Be on your guard.” In verse thirteen, He commands us to
endure. In verse 23, He says, “Take
heed.” Jesus says in verses 33-37:
33 “Take heed, keep
on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will
come. 34 It is like a man away on a journey, who upon
leaving his house and putting his slaves in charge, assigning to
each one his task, also commanded the doorkeeper to stay on the alert. 35 Therefore, be
on the alert—for you do not know when the master of the house is coming,
whether in the evening, at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in
the morning— 36 in case he should come suddenly and
find you asleep. 37 What I say to you I say to
all, ‘Be on the alert!’”
Waiting on God is difficult for
me. It is difficult for us all. Perhaps you have something happening in your
life, where you have to wait for God’s timing.
It seems like the answer never comes, and you get anxious just sitting
around waiting. The summer, 1993 issue Leadership talks about someone who made
some bad decisions because he couldn’t deal with boredom. He showed how difficult it is to just sit and
wait:
Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry
Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a
new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and
bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself
into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled
balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich,
and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was
ready to land.
Walters, who
assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off
guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky -- smack into
the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too
frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two
hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon,
causing long delays in flights from across the country.
Soon after he
was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three
questions:
"Where you scared?" "Yes."
"Would you do it again?" "No."
"Why did you do it?" "Because," he said, "you can't just sit there."[ii]
Sometimes it can be difficult to just
sit there and wait on God. We can become
anxious and decide to take matters into our own hands. Like Larry Walters, we can end up a victim of
our own hasty decisions, suspended between this thing and that thing, and at
the mercy of any wind that may blow us back and forth. G. Campbell Morgan advises us to wait. “Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for
God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of
effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second,
readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing
until the command is given.” I hope that
you’ll learn patience as you watch and wait.
This Advent season, we wait for the
coming of Christmas, the celebration of the advent of the Christ child. But we also remember Jesus’ instructions to
us: that we are to watch and wait for His second coming. I remember my dad telling me the story of
something that happened to him one day as he was driving. A cloud formation, combined with a trick of
the sunlight, looked so amazing that Dad said he had to pull off the road. He didn’t pull over just to get a better
look, but also so that he would be ready in case this was the Rapture. Of course, it wasn’t the Rapture, but Dad
wanted to be prepared if this was the second advent of Christ. He wanted to be ready for the great
adventure.
I’m not saying you need to pull your car
over for every cloud formation. I am
saying that during this season of Advent we need to wait for His arrival. We need to look for His coming in the clouds,
in the snowflakes, in the carols carried by the crisp wind. Seek Him in the manger and in the faces of
the children gathered round. Look for
the ways God is appearing in your life. Be
patient. Keep alert. Watch and wait. Seek Him, and you will find Him. That is the great adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment