“Getting Ready for the Present”

I Corinthians 1:3-9

November 27, 2005 – First Sunday in Advent

First Presbyterian Church Carson City

Pastor Bruce Kochsmeier

     We hear it again and again especially in this season, “What are you waiting for?” if we slow down even for a moment in a line, in a store, a parking lot.  People want to know why Christians approach this season as we do.  And the good news is that we have the best news to tell of what we are waiting.  Are we prepared to tell it?

     Actually I’m glad for the big deal that gets made of Christmas, secular as it may be, because it is our opportunity to help people be ready for the present that they don’t have to stand in line for; the present that they know they need more than anything else.

     Do you know what people are waiting for this year?  It’s the new Xbox360 from Microsoft.  It sells for $300, but there aren’t any…unless you go on the gray market of ebay and pay…$1500.  And they don’t even work right!  They freeze up once you start to use them – just like every other “thing” that we put in front of waiting on God to be our only true source of hope and satisfaction.

Every year it’s something that is really nothing.  And just because we aren’t standing in line for this doesn’t mean that something else just like it isn’t pulling at it.

     Paul begins this passage saying, “I give thanks to my God always for you because the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind --…” This means we have an insight into whaat really matters and that we KNOW that nothing is lacking for us in God’s love.  In our relationships, in shopping, in fear, in celebration, NOTHING is lacking for those who are relying upon God’s love in Jesus Christ.  Is this what we are waiting for?

     It was into a world of mixed up values like ours that this letter was written by Paul to encourage believers to stay on track.  Today we are called to receive a gift and be prepared to pass this gift on in very practical ways to those who don’t know about the greatest gift of all.

     How do I get ready for something really important?  I focus on it.  I make it my highest priority.  I let other things go.  I’d like to suggest we all get our Christmas shopping done today so that we can let everything else go in order to focus on letting God take us to a new place of knowing how perfect is his love for us in this season.  So go buy everyone a flashlight and tell them that when the lights go out to remember they have it just like God’s love for us!!  Any every time they look at or use that flashlight they will remember the more important light – the gift of God’s amazing grace.

     A big part of our getting ready is waiting.  Do we know what we are waiting for?  The revealing of God in Jesus Christ.  We are waiting for the only thing that really matters in life.  It is so worth our waiting that we can have peace while we wait because we learn as we wait just how essential this gift is; what it is bringing to us even as we await it.  A wise man describes this waiting as the waiting for the coming of Jesus.  He says, “His coming will not be like that of a man but it will be a revelation, a removing of the veil, a manifestation of who Jesus is and what he is, a revelation of what before had been believed but not seen.  He will come as our Lord.  It will be a moment that deserves our attention.”   

     Listen to the key phrases of this passage, “as you wait for the revealing of our Lord…”  “He will also strengthen you to the end…so that you may be blameless on the day…” Is this what we are looking for?  So easily our looking is for ourselves, even in the life of the church rather than looking for Jesus and for what Jesus reveals in his love.  If we are really waiting for Jesus as Lord our waiting will look like this: Service to others.  Prayer.  Silence.  Reading.  Study.  It will be a form of discipline that takes us to a place in relationship to God where we’ve never been before.  And in this waiting we will let ourselves love and be loved in our waiting such that we experience and express the presence of Jesus.  It will be a waiting this is NOT boring, but strengthening and encouraging because of what we let God teach us about ourselves and our need for God every single day.

     American writer and humorist James Thurber once said, "All human beings should try to learn, before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why."  Do we know this?  In this season of preparation are we letting ourselves know and speak of Jesus and run to him and away from all that would seek to distract us from his message of grace?  Are we running to the opportunity to tell others of his love?  Will we say with the monk Brother Lawrence, “Lord of all pots and pans and things…Make me a saint by getting meals and washing up plates!”?  Will we find in our waiting ways to wait on the world for Jesus’ sake?

     The name and title of Jesus Christ appears woven into every phrase of this passage.  This is what needs to happen to our lives in this season; for the person and work of Jesus Christ to be confronting and weaving into everything we are about – our shopping (and NOT shopping), our singing and thinking.  For in this is the presence of the present that is God’s deepest, richest, gift that is worth standing in line for.

     And as we wait God makes us strong so that in the end…of the day, year, life, as we stand before Jesus we can say, “Yes”.  So we can say, “Nothing got in the way.”  As we say no to all that asks us compromise or stop waiting for God’s faithfulness God’s Holy Spirit strengthens us and shows us a power and charis/grace that is not available to us no matter how much we try to get it somewhere else.

     The key is learning to let God work in us as we wait.  Our waiting is our testimony.  It is God speaking to us and through us.  Paul says of our waiting…the testimony (marturion) of Christ may be strengthened in you…This is the preparation that is needed to be seen in us and for us; that our whole lives are found focusing on Jesus Christ and his grace for us.  Our opportunity as we testify to those whom we touch is to key in on this gift for the season; that there is nothing lacking; that because we are waiting for God’s gift we don’t need anything else.  Not only will we have our basic needs met, we will have salvation; that restored relationship with God that fills us now and forever.  When we are waiting for the ONE TRUE God to be at the center of all we are we don’t NEED anything else.  This is our witness.

     The waiting that is described here is intense and is a waiting for a revealing.  That is, they know it is going to be great, but how great is yet to be seen.  The expectation is such that nothing is to take its place.

     Getting ready for the present is realizing that God is already ready for us.  God has taken the first and greatest step toward us.  God has said, “I’ve given you myself and you don’t owe me a thing.  Just accept my love and give it away.”  That’s what these days; this life is all about.  But so easily we are spending our time on something else.

     When we don’t focus on the present of God’s presence for us in Jesus Christ we can miss the whole point of being alive.

     I saw this in the movie “The Polar Express” on Thanksgiving.  It is about a train headed to the North Pole on Christmas Eve.  It stops to pick up first one boy who I suspect is really you and me and the world…a boy who is about to give up on waiting for the power of Christmas until the train stops for him.  The conductor invites him on to the train but he won’t get aboard.  So the conductor says, “Suit yourself” and the train starts to pull out.  Only as it moves does the boy finally jump on.  At another stop the same thing happens to a boy who is described as being from “the other side of the tracks”.  He says, “Christmas never works out for me” and he too nearly lets the train go, but jumps aboard for the free ride and the transforming adventure that comes for both boys because they let themselves go.  The conductor reflects the gift when he says to them, “The one thing about trains is that the most important part is getting on board.”

     What will it be for us this year?  Will we let Jesus Christ welcome us on board to experience the revealing of the gift of himself to us and to the world?  This season let’s be ready for the present.  Let’s focus on the gift that really matters.  Let’s get to know the one who is worth waiting for and who strengthens us as we do.  Let’s show the world the gift of belonging to Jesus and to his body, the Church.  It’s the greatest gift we can ever give or receive.  Let’s make this the year we are ready for the present by living it.  Amen.