Sunday Morning Sanctuary

November 27, 2005

“Wait Watchers”

Mark 13:32-37

Most things in life, while they may be anticipated, cannot be predicted or controlled. Someone wisely observed: “Life is what happens when you’ve made other plans.” While we may fuss impatiently about all the interruptions in our plans, in our work and in our leisure, we soon learn that interruptions are part of life and we must make the most creative use of them. I remember going to Sky Harbor Airport one day to pick up my parents. I located the computer screen that listed flight arrivals, and as I scanned the schedule looking for the flight I was to meet, I came across one that read: “Unscheduled—see agent.” Now I was intrigued, for the common term used by airlines for late flights is “Delayed,” but here was this no nonsense remark, “Unscheduled—see agent.” I had to find out, so I went to the airline agent who told me that there had been equipment failures and unexpected weather problems and that the flight was indeed “unscheduled,”—not delayed—for no arrival time could be determined. Therefore, all anyone could do was wait patiently.

In this (tonight’s) morning’s reading from the Bible, Jesus proclaims that an important part of faith is such patient waiting. He’s discussing the end-time with his followers, and is talking about that moment when God will fulfill human history as had been predicted for so long by the prophets. This particular passage is part of what is known as “Mark’s Little Apocalypse,” apocalypse meaning that historical time before God brings an end to human existence as we know it (the Book of Revelation being one such piece of biblical writing), for Mark summarizes Jesus’ teachings and warnings about how the end will come, and what it’ll mean. But unlike the interpreters of such signs in his day and in our own, Jesus makes it plain that no one can know for sure when the moment will come, that no one can read current events or crises as definitive clues to God’s timing. God’s arrival will always be unscheduled:

But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.

So, while the event can be anticipated, it cannot be predicted or scheduled. This is a truth we need to accept and understand, for this is how it is with much of life.

Let that be our first word (tonight) this morning: we have no choice but to learn to wait with patience again and again. No one can avoid such waiting and watching. We wait for the answer, the verdict, the outcome. We wait for weddings to take place, for babies to be born. We watch for the mail, for the telephone to ring, for Christmas morning, for the doctor’s prognosis, for the word of approval and encouragement, for summer to end, for the pain to ease, for the light to come. Farmers wait for the harvest. And how often we wait and watch through all kinds of vigils and crises. Children wait for school breaks, teenagers wait to gain their freedom and the terminally ill wait to die.

We may wish it otherwise, but waiting itself is an inevitability of life. Just ask Mary, Jesus’ mother, or any woman who’s about to give birth to a child, what it means to wait. Or ask patients in a burn center or a physical rehabilitation program. Ask the scientists in their prolonged research what it means to wait. Ask the astronomers who slowly study for years a distant star or galaxy. Ask the novelist who stares into space until a character or a plot takes shape enough to be put into words. Ask the military personnel who are alert in some part of the world or ask their loved ones here at home what it means to wait. Ask anyone who’s been held as a hostage or political prisoner and they’ll tell you what it means to wait hour after hour, day after day, week after week—even year after year.

Faith also includes its waiting room. Ask any person whose prayers echo in the unanswering silence what it means to wait. Ask the person who crys out, “Why, God?” when life is darkened by tragedy and loss, suffering and violation. Ask Jesus praying in Gethsemane or dying on Golgotha. Ask Paul weak and sick in his prison cell at Caesarea. Ask frustrated Christian hunger workers in places of famine today what it means to wait, or those who, in the name of Christ, counsel youth who are in the sewer of drug abuse or involved in gangs. They’ll tell you that more often than not, faith is a waiting and a hanging on when there’s nothing else to do, that faith is carrying on with hope when everything goes from bad to worse and there’s no response. They’ll tell you: “Faith is patience with the lamp lit.”

A remarkable story of what we’re saying appeared not too long ago in a newspaper article. It concerned a joyful reunion that occurred after 25 years of separation between a father and his daughter. The father had been kept in solitary confinement as a political prisoner in Romania. His family had escaped and fled to this country. There were long periods when the family didn’t know for sure whether the father was dead or alive, but they kept hoping, waiting and watching for some word. And then word came that he was alive, had been released and was coming to the United States. It was a heartfelt moment of meeting at the airport as the two embraced and whispered through tears the typical Romanian greeting: Bene te-am gasit. “Hope I’ve found you in good health.” The father had much to tell and so did the daughter, as they tried to catch up on 25 years of their lives. Some of the father’s story was painful to tell and painful for the daughter to hear. One of the most moving things that the father shared occurred one year on the third day of Christmas, St. Stephen’s Day. Hear it in his words:

I didn’t notice at first the loud coughs in the prison cell next to mine. They came from the Catholic priest, the only prisoner allowed to cough out loud, since he had tuberculosis. I then became aware that the pattern of his coughing followed the Morse Code signals we have previously used to communicate with each other through knocks on the wall . . . The priest was using his special coughing privilege to convey a prayer to St. Stephen on behalf of us prisoners. He repeated his prayer twice and I finally deciphered it: “St. Stephen, you the first martyr of Christianity, listen to our fervent prayer of hope as we wait for our deliverance. Destroy our chains and keep us faithful. Amen.”

Yes, faith must learn to pray and wait patiently, keeping the lamp of hope lighted.

It follows that the church is always the community of “wait watchers.” That’s our other word (tonight) this morning. We, who believe in Christ’s revelation and claim God’s promise, wait for the Lord’s coming now into the very midst of our life and world during this season of Advent, and we also wait for the Lord’s final appearing in glory at the end-time. When God says, “Wait,” God always says more than that. God says, “Wait with each other, and, while you wait, upbuild one another and love one another.” God says, “While you wait, live from faith and believe my promises.” We’re to be like Noah, who, while waiting, built the ark; or like Abraham, who made the journey while waiting for God’s clue to what was happening; or like the apostle Paul who made tents and preached the word at the intersections of life while he waited for more truth.

The church is a community of hope that engages in the least of tasks while waiting for the last revelation. That’s why we Christians build hospitals, orphanages, Habitat for Humanity homes and schools while we wait. That’s why we Christians dig water wells, clean up streams and rivers, and plant trees while we wait. That’s why we Christians feed the hungry and struggle against injustice, work for peace and economic opportunity while we wait. That’s why we Christians proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, come together each week for worship and study and go out in mission, baptize and celebrate the Lord’s supper while we wait. While we wait for the Lord’s coming, we prepare for it by staying on alert and living this moment well in love. Christ calls us into the fellowship of his promise and then sends us out to do the most for the least in this present moment, even while we wait for the last glory moment when God will realize God’s final purpose.

In the opening chapter of his book, The Invisible Pyramid, Dr. Loren Eiseley, who was a distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania, relates the story of seeing Halley’s Comet as a young child in 1910. His father had lifted him to his shoulder as they stood in a field and gazed at the flaming comet crossing the sky. It was a moment of closeness between father and son that Eiseley cherished all of his life. Eiseley remembered how his father had whispered in his ear: “It will come again and you will see it again . . . I will be gone, and you will have grown old . . . but you will wait and see it again for me.” Unfortunately, Eiseley died in the summer of 1977, before the comet returned. Eiseley left no sons or daughters to see it for him or their grandfather.

The church is the community who always has a generation living and waiting in the faith promise that Jesus comes to us now, and that Jesus will return at the end-time to bring in the fullness of God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ message to watch and wait for his coming is passed on from one generation to the next through the Gospel, through the celebration of Advent, and through the living faith of the community who prays, “Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” So be it!