A Time to Wait

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, November 28, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Jeremiah 33:10-17.

            Advent.  A time of waiting.  Not just waiting to no purpose, of course.  Purposefully waiting for something.  Purposefully waiting for someone.  In the Christian context, of course, waiting for the coming of the Savior.

            This is the first Sunday of the period in which we celebrate Advent.  But really, the Christian church is in a constant period of Advent.  We are waiting.  Waiting for the coming of the Savior.  We know He will come.  He promised that He would, and we know the Lord always keeps His promises.  

But we don’t know when.  And so, we wait.  We don’t do nothing while we’re waiting, of course.  We purposefully wait.  While we wait, we do the things the Savior told us to do, to the best of our ability.  We show love to our neighbors.  We go and make disciples.  We do what we can to get ourselves and others ready for the coming of the Savior.

Some people think He will come soon.  None of us knows, of course.  We know that every day that passes brings us one day closer to the day when He will come again.  But whether that day is soon or a long time in the future, no one knows.  It’s true, though, that we certainly see a lot of things happening in the world that we don’t think are right.  And it makes us wonder.  It makes us wonder if perhaps the day will be soon.  But we don’t know.  And so, we wait.

The people of Jeremiah’s time saw a lot of things happening in the world that they did not think were right, too.  Their beloved country, Judah, was laid waste.  Jerusalem was deserted.  Not even animals would live there.  Sometimes we just kind of go past that, but think about it.  A place so deserted, a place so desolate, that not even animals will live there.

            Think about how the people of Israel must have felt.  Jerusalem.  The capital city.  The Holy City.  Completely abandoned.  No one there.  Nothing there.  Imagine how totally devastated they must have been, when that happened.

            God, speaking through Jeremiah, acknowledges all that.  But God says this is not going to last forever.  God says, “there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness…and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord…For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before...in all its towns there will again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks.”  And in all the towns around, “flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who counts them.”

            That had to sound good to the people of Judah.  It had to give them some hope.  They wrote these words down.  They remembered them.  They kept them.  They preserved them.  These words were so important to them, and they remembered them so well and they preserved them so well, that we still have these words, more than two thousand five hundred years later.

            But then time started to pass.  And nothing was happening.  Jerusalem was not being rebuilt.  Judah was not being restored.  There was no evidence that anything was happening, and there was no sign that anything was going to happen.

            We’re not told, but it seems like people must have gotten discouraged.  It took a hundred years for anything to happen with Judah.  Finally, after a hundred years, the people of Judah were allowed to start rebuilding the city of Jerusalem.  But it was not because Judah had become independent.  It was not because they had regained their freedom.  They were only able to rebuild Jerusalem because the King of Persia agreed to allow them to.  And they could not restore Jerusalem to its former glory.  They did not have the money.  They did not have the manpower.  They did not have the resources.  They did the best they could, but everyone knew this new version of Jerusalem could not hold a candle to the old version.  And some of the people mourned because of that.

            But still, it was better than nothing.  It was not the former Jerusalem, but at least it was not desolate and deserted anymore.  But of course, that was only part of Jeremiah’s prophecy.  The other part was the coming of a Savior.  Because God also said this:  “The days are coming when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.  In those days and at that time, I will make a righteous branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  This is the name by which it will be called:  The Lord Our Righteous Savior.”

            Again, a great promise.  A promise to give them hope.  A promise that was important to them, one that they remembered and wrote down.  But as the years went on, a promise that seemed like it was not being fulfilled.  Years went by.  Generations went by.  Centuries went by.  One hundred years.  Two hundred years.  Three hundred years.  More.  It was nearly six hundred years until Jesus was born.  And it was more than six hundred years until Jesus started His ministry.

            Think about that.  The people of Judah had to wait six hundred years for this prophecy to be fulfilled.  Think about how long six hundred years is.  Six hundred years ago it was 1421.  There was no United States.  In fact, the people in Europe did not even know that the land we now call America existed.  The King James Version of the Bible did not exist--in fact, the Bible had not yet been translated into English at all.  Not only was there no Methodist church, there was no Protestant church of any kind--Martin Luther had not been born yet.  That’s how long six hundred years is.  And that’s how long the people of Judah had to wait for the Savior to be born.

            The corona virus has been a major part of our world for nearly two years now.  And many people have been praying for God to take it away.  And it has not happened.  There are times when it seems like things are getting better, and there are times when it seems like things are getting worse, but there have been no times where we thought, “Well, that’s all over now.  That’s in the past.  We don’t have to worry about it anymore.”  And it does not look like that time is going to come any time soon.

            And many people wonder why not.  We wonder why God does not hear our prayers.  We wonder why God does not answer.  And of course that happens in a lot of situations other than the coronavirus, too.  Personal situations, work situations, relationship situations, financial situations.  National and world situations, too.  It seems like we pray, and we pray, and we pray, and nothing happens.  And we wonder why.  We wonder why God does not seem to be hearing our prayers.  We wonder why God does not respond.  We wonder why God does not make something happen.

            I’m sure the people of Judah wondered the same thing.  They heard the prophecies.  They believed them.  They prayed for God to make them come true.  The Priests prayed.  The Rabbis prayed.  The teachers of the law prayed.  The common people prayed.  And nothing happened.  And they prayed some more.  And nothing happened some more.  And they kept praying.  And nothing kept happening.

            They did not understand it.  I’m sure some of them got discouraged.  I’m sure some of them started to have doubts.  Maybe some of them even gave up on God.  Maybe some of them decided the prophecy was wrong, or maybe it had been misinterpreted.  Or maybe Jeremiah had made the whole thing up, and God had not spoken to him at all.  

            God made them wait.  And those who had enough faith did wait.  They passed their faith to their children, who passed it on to their children, who passed it on to their children.  They waited a hundred years for even the partial rebuilding of Jerusalem.  They waited six hundred years for the coming of the Savior.

            It was a lot of years, and a lot of waiting.  It was not easy.  But it was worth it.  It was worth it because, eventually, the Savior did come.  And the people who kept their faith, and who recognized the Savior, and who believed in Him, were able to claim salvation and eternal life.

            We are waiting now.  God is making us wait.  We don’t understand it, sometimes.  Sometimes we get discouraged.  Sometimes we start to have doubts. Sometimes, we’re tempted to give up on God, too.

            It is hard to wait.  God created humans to be an impatient bunch.  In fact, it seems like we’re less patient now than we’ve ever been.  Less patient with technology, less patient with each other, and less patient with God.

            But patience is a virtue.  Now, that exact quote is not found in the Bible.  But the Bible does have many verses that talk about how important patience is to our faith.  If we’re going to be Christians, if we’re going to trust God, we’re going to have to learn to be patient.  God does not act on our time schedule.  God acts in God’s way and at God’s time.  We need to learn to trust God’s timing, even if we don’t like it, and even if we don’t understand it.

            The people of Judah waited a long time.  Sometimes it seems like we have to wait a long time, too.  It’s hard to wait.  But let’s make sure it’s a purposeful waiting.  Let’s use this time of waiting that God is giving us.  Let’s use it to love our neighbor.  Let’s use it to go and make disciples.  Let’s use it to stay faithful to God.  May this time of Advent be a time of holy, blessed, purposeful waiting.