The Waiting Game

The Waiting Game December 4, 2011 Franktown United Methodist Church Have I ever told you the story of Big Jake? Victor Pentz, pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church, tells the story kind of like this: Imagine an old West Texas town. One day a horse wanders in carrying a battered cowboy slumped over his saddle. The townsfolk rush toward the man just in time to hear him utter his final words: "Big Jake is comin'." With that his body went limp. Needless to say the townspeople started to get ready. They locked up the children in their houses. They barred the doors to their businesses and covered the windows in their homes. They crawled behind tables as their lips moved in inaudible prayer. And before long they heard the clap, clap of a horse’s hooves. They peered out the window and out on Main Street here came the biggest, meanest-looking cowboy they'd ever seen in their lives. The guy was seven feet tall, riding a black horse, with a rifle, two six guns and bandoleers criss-crossing his chest. He has an ugly scar along his jaw, one glass eye, and lips curled into a cruel sneer. He stopped in front of the saloon and tied up his horse and as he walked through the swinging doors, he tore them off at their hinges. He brought his fist down on the bar and yelled, “Whiskey!” With that he grabbed a bottle from the bartender’s hand and polished it off in a single gulp. The bartender said, "Well, h-h-how ‘bout another one?" to which the big cowpoke said, "You crazy? I’ve got to get out of here. Big Jake is comin’.”* You might imagine John the Baptist a little like that cowboy. Not that he was a whiskey-drinking, gun-toting giant. He wasn't any of those things. But he was somebody he caught your attention. Like the Old Testament prophets we read about - Jeremiah, Elijah, and Ezekiel and others - John was known for disturbing the peace. He wandered around the desert places, wearing clothes made out of camel skin with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. And, you know, none of these things would make him a fashion icon in our time, but they wouldn't have been all that strange to people who grew up with stories of Jeremiah and his ilk. You expect your prophets to look a little strange. What was remarkable was that people went out to see him. They went to the deserts to see John. They thought maybe he was the one they had been waiting for. But like the cowboy in the story, John said, "No. It's not me. Somebody more powerful than I am is coming. I'm not worthy to even untie the thong of his sandal" - the lowliest role that a servant could have. The people were waiting for a Messiah, but what they expected was someone seven-feet-tall and armed to the teeth. What they expected was a cataclysmic confrontation. But what John wanted to prepare them for was a savior who was not just going to challenge the enemies of God's people, but also challenge God's people themselves. In the Disciple Bible Study that meets on Sunday evenings we have been studying those Old Testament prophets and what we have discovered week after week is a really consistent message. The people of Israel and Judah are facing threats from foreign powers - Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt. They are hopelessly outmatched by these greater powers. It looks like the end is near. They are praying for God to deliver them. They look to the prophets and what do they say? Invariably the prophets say, "You have brought this on yourself. God has told you how to live and you ignored what God said. God said to care for the poor and you holed up in ivory palaces and ignored them. God told you to love only God - the one, true God of Israel and you worshipped other gods. God told you to give justice to the people in the gate where the legal cases are decided and you tipped the balance in favor of the well-connected. Why are you now surprised that things are going badly?" That's not all the prophets say, though. They talk about doom but they also talk about hope. They talk about a day of restoration that will come. It's almost like God is saying that even the worst thing that could happen to the people, and which will happen to the people, is not powerful enough to end the story of God's presence with the people. Big Jake is coming. Something greater than destruction is coming. Last week we saw how Jesus warned his followers about the things that would accompany his return to earth. We talked about the destruction and the division and the persecutions that would come and we wondered about Jesus' saying that that generation would not pass away before all these things happened. We wondered because that generation did pass away and we are still here. Still waiting. We're not the first to wonder. When Peter was writing his epistles to a group of Christians late in the first century AD, they were wondering, too. Why had Jesus not come yet? They had been looking forward to his return. When was it going to happen? In the passage we read this morning from 2 Peter, just before that section it says that people were beginning to ask, "Where is his promised return? For ever since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4 NET) But the writer goes on to say, "The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because [God] does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9 NET) Our time doesn't work like God's time. We get moment after moment in a sequence so there is a sense of space between this moment and some time down the road. But God, who dwells outside of time, in eternity, doesn't experience things like that. "A thousand ages in God's sight are like an evening past," to quote an old hymn. But it's not even like that. No evenings pass for God. Everything is eternally present for God. And this passage from 2 Peter tells us that in the eternal present of God there is something more powerful than punishment and destruction. God is not just sitting around waiting to zap us for our misdeeds. "God is patient not wanting any to perish." And that shows us that along with God's justice we also get God's love. Now if love is the thing that really matters. If love is the engine that the universe runs on, then some extraordinary things happen. There can be destruction and fire and all the heavens may melt away. That's what 2 Peter says and that's what science tells us earth's final destiny is - it will be swallowed up by the sun some billions of years in the future. But that's not the last word over us. If love is the most powerful thing in the universe then the consequence of our sin is not to make us forever unacceptable to God. Jesus came into the world so that our sin would not have the power to end our relationship with God. When we repent God is quick to forgive, because Jesus lays bare our lives before God, lays bare our every weakness, every failure, every blemish and God says through Jesus, "Come to me. I love you even in your broken condition. I love you just as you are because I know who you can be." If love is the thing we are waiting for, then it is a sign that God will not accept our despair and our hopelessness. These are consequences of not being able to see as God sees. God knows what our destiny is - we are meant for God - every one is meant for God. And God waits on us to accept that we have been accepted by God and to repent, to turn around, to let go of our junk and to walk with Jesus. If love is what God is really all about, and it is, then it is also a sign that God will not ultimately accept even God's own despair over this broken world. God weeps at the tragedies of war and poverty and neglect. God weeps when children die of AIDS. God weeps when people turn to hate-filled philosophies instead of towards life. God weeps when religion is perverted to be an instrument for death. But God's weeping is not the last word. What's the last word? It's born in a manger. It's been whispering in the wind since the dawn of creation. It's been spoken through the prophets. But at Christmas the last word became flesh. The curtain was drawn back on the greatest mystery of creation. And suddenly what God has been up to all along was laid bare before all who had eyes to see. Some got angels in a neighboring field to tell them the news. Some got a star to call them across eastern deserts to let them know. And what we get is the story. John the Baptist would say that your sin is unacceptable. Your despair is unacceptable. Your belief that you are eternally unacceptable is unacceptable. Because no matter what you have done or what has been done to you, you cannot escape the God whose name is love. Psalm 139 has a section where the psalmist talks about fleeing from God and finding that no place he could go would take him from God's pursuing love. "If I were to say, 'Certainly the darkness will cover me, and the light will turn to night all around me,' even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, and the night is as bright as day; darkness and light are the same to you." (Psalm 139:11, 12 NET) "Darkness and light are the same to you." God sees in the darkness. God knows who we are. And God loves us anyway. Thanks be to God. *Dr. Victor Pentz, "The Baby that Rocked the World," Peachtree Presbyterian Church website, 30 Nov 2008, http://www.peachtreepres.org/downloads/sermons/20081130sermon.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2011.