Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Waiting for Christ (-mas)"
Date: December 16, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  James 5:7-10

On a Christmas Eve when I was 8 or 9 years old—although I’m reluctant to say that when you hear what this story is about—I went to bed in my bedroom, which was just off the entry hall to our home.  Just as I was getting into bed, our next door neighbor came over; why, I no longer recall.  I do remember hearing her chatting on and on with my parents in the living room.  ‘When will she go home?’ I wondered to myself.  ‘Santa can’t come as long as she’s out there talking.’  I believe I even prayed about it!  “Dear God, please let Mrs. McNevin go home so Santa can come.”  Evidently my prayer worked.  When I awoke the next morning, there were plenty of gifts under the tree.  And we didn’t even have a fireplace!

If you were to ask your average child right now what they are waiting for, my guess is that they would say Santa.  If you were to ask most adults what they are waiting for, I imagine the answers might range between the office party, relatives to arrive, the Christmas cruise or ski vacation, the engagement ring she expects to receive on Christmas Eve (when more women receive engagement rings than any other time of the year).  And some people are just waiting for Christmas to be over, either because of bad experiences with the holiday, or because this Christmas is so very difficult after the loss of a loved one.  I don’t wish to be as skeptical as this will sound, but I suspect that not even a majority of Christians’ first answer would be to say they are waiting for Christ on Christmas Eve.  We are not good at waiting nowadays, and we aren’t always clear about what we are waiting for.

We are not a very patient people.  When we are patients, and go to our doctor, we wish to be prescribed some medicine which will cure us by tomorrow.  Or we are overcome by the busyness and demands of the season, whether by family, our work, or what we believe is expected of us.  I know our church staff has heard me in staff meetings praying for patience as I have felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities which fall into a pastor’s life these last two weeks before Christmas.

Today’s lesson urges patience.  (Maybe I’m preaching more to myself here than you!)  We don’t know the exact context in which the Epistle of James was written, but you can tell from reading the five chapters, or even today’s four verses, that it was written to Christians who were having a hard time of it.  Perhaps they were suffering terrible persecution by their pagan neighbors.  Or perhaps they were being mocked by their unbelieving friends.  “When is your Jesus going to return and take you home?” their friends might have taunted.  It must have been tough to live through those days and ongoing years of the first century when believers thought Jesus’ promise to return meant in their lifetimes.

James urges them to have patience, to remember that God is faithful.  “Be patient,” James tells them.  He reminds them that a farmer has to be patient in order to wait for his crop to grow and to be ready for harvest.  He reminds them of the prophets and their words, implying that they ought to cling to what they know of God’s actions in the past in order to have faith in God’s work for the future.

The patience spoken of by James is not some limp, sweet sense of polite resignation saying, “We’ll just have to be patient, to sit here until something someday happens.”

Patience, Christian patience, is that quiet, but clench-fisted confidence that God lives, that God acts, that God cares, and that God eventually moves toward us.  Maybe not today.  Maybe not tomorrow.  But someday. 

Patience is the byproduct of hope, which is a byproduct of faith.  Without patience, we would lose hope, become discouraged, prematurely defeated.  With patience, we remember all those prophets who believed, and hoped, and worked because they knew something which the world did not know, namely, that God moves toward us.  Even so far as coming to us in human form to show us how much this God cares.

On this Third Sunday of Advent, we are awaiting the Advent of Christ among us.  In a sense, we’re always awaiting Christ’s advent among us.  We’re always living between the times, between his first advent at Bethlehem and his next in the future.  When you are in pain, or great distress, this waiting can be difficult.  Yet we will not be healed, without patience.  Things take time.  We can wait with patience and with confidence, not always knowing what the future holds, but always knowing Who holds the future.

I propose to you that if Christmas is especially difficult for you this year, none of that which the secular world thrives on and most of us enjoy really matters:  not the tree, the decorations, the presents, the Christmas cards, the parties . . . not even the Ensley family eggnog!  If all of that is too much for you to bear, take apart the word “Christmas”.  What is at the heart of it?  Christ.  It is when things are not going well for you that you need to believe that it’s not going to be Santa Claus, but Christ who is there to hear you, to cry with you, to hold you, to support you.  In the words from the Gospel of John which I read at yesterday’s memorial service, twice in one chapter Jesus tells his followers:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (14:1, 27)

A poem entitled “A Christmas Prayer” by Dorothy Hsu seems to sum it all up:

It’s Christmas, Lord.

The season to be jolly and all that.

But some of us aren’t so jolly.

It’s time for families to be together,

To sing “I’ll be home for Christmas.” But Lord,

Some of our loved ones won't be home

This year,

Or ever.

And some of us find it very difficult

To shop for Aunt Jane

And Grandpa.

Some of us find our minds so

Occupied with a desperately ill child,

Or a tired worn-out body

That we can’t cope with crowds

Or carols.

And some of us find that

Happy memories of Christmases past

Make this Christmas seem Hollow,

Altogether unbearable.

It’s a temptation, Lord,

To just skip it,

To refuse to decorate a tree,

or send a card,

Or purchase a single present.

For one alone,

Such an approach is possible,

I suppose.

But for little ones in a home, Lord,

It’s unfair.

It takes tremendous strength

For some of us to say

“Merry Christmas” this year.

More strength than

Some of us even possess.

And that’s exactly why you came,

Isn’t it, Lord?

-“A Christmas Prayer” by Dorothy Hsu,

originally published in Solo, the Magazine for the Christian Single.