2 Advent, Yr B (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
2 Advent, Yr B (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Isaiah 40:1-11 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
A couple of months ago as I was sitting in a packed airport, waiting for my flight,
I heard the “ding” of the phone of the woman sitting next to me.
And then I heard a long sigh.
And then a verbal,
“Oh no, not again!”
She took out her ear buds and looked at me and explained,
“My flight just got delayed again.
I changed my original flight to this one so that I could get home faster,
and now they’ve delayed it again.
I won’t get home until 8:00 tonight.”
I nodded and verbalized my sympathy for her predicament.
After about 20 minutes, her phone dinged.
She started picking up her bags and said,
“They delayed it again!
I’ve got to go see if I can sort this out.”
I wished her good luck.
The season of Advent is about waiting,
and preparation,
and expectation.
Waiting, with patience,
is a lesson often hard to come by…
slow in the learning.
It has taken me 57 years to not switch grocery lanes when another one seems to move faster…
I’ve learned that invariably as soon as I switch,
the person in front of me can’t find their change,
or their broken eggs need to be swapped out.
I have learned that I’m better off just waiting where I am,
and I start praying for people.
I pray for people I know,
and then I start praying for the parent with the screaming child behind me
(and I thank God that I survived those child-rearing years).
One theme of today’s readings seems to be:
Hurry up and wait!
God’s time is not our time,
but oh, how we wish it were.
We hear in 2nd Peter:
“with the Lord one day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years are like one day.”
But,
I want what I want right now…please.
I want to get home right now.
I want to get my groceries and get on my way.
Or, on a more urgent note:
I want to know the results of my bloodwork or CT scan.
I want my body to heal from surgery.
I want these devastating wars and hurricanes
and earthquakes and senseless acts of violence to end!
These are all reasonable and indeed good things to want and…
waiting is hard.
SO HARD!
So hard.
We will wait,
but God, could you hurry up a bit…please?
Today’s text from Isaiah is written for a people in exile…
a people once again wandering in the wilderness far away from home,
a people longing for healing and restoration.
Remember the words from Isaiah last week?
O Lord, break open the heavens and come down!
Come down and save us, O Lord!
And today we hear God’s words of comfort to these broken people.
“A voice says, ‘Cry out!
and I said, ‘What shall I cry?...’
“The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever…
“God will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.”
God sends a word of comfort and hope and healing.
God is our shepherd.
God will carry us and gently lead us.
When the waiting seems too much to bear,
God is reminding us that we are not alone.
God is reminding us that God loves us and walks with us along the journey.
Kyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero, Grace Professor of Leadership at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatchewan makes these comments:
“We want things to happen on our own time;
we want God to fit into our timelines;
we want to dictate when things start and when they finish.
“Advent is a reminder that not everything is in our control,
and calls us to question those things we think are in our control.
“Advent is an opportunity to rethink our relationship with time.
“And that is what the author of 2 Peter is calling his readers to do:
to reorient with regard to time.
“God’s time is not our time,
and our time is not God’s time.” (from WorkingPreacher.org)
2 Peter says “with God one day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years are like one day.”
The Good News and our hope is that God is fulfilling God’s promises
to be with us and to lead us into abundant life.
I think this is why so many folks were flocking to John in the wilderness.
They were looking for cleansing and new life…
They were a people broken by the oppression of the Roman Empire,
and they were not only looking for new life but were willing to participate in finding it!
This is the key to today’s readings.
We are collaborators in God’s plan for salvation!
We are not to sit back and wait for God to act upon us.
We are called to live into God’s kindom that is already in our midst.
We are to walk into the wilderness ourselves to find those in need of healing.
It may be that we find that wilderness in the pew behind us,
or at the Community Kitchen,
or at the dining room table at our Christmas dinner,
or in the breakroom in our workplaces.
God calls us to walk into the wilderness
and bear the presence of God through our very lives.
To echo the question asked in 2 Peter:
What sort of persons ought [we] to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God?
The longer I walk on this earth,
it strikes me that many times bearing the presence of God means
just listening to someone’s story of pain or bewilderment or fear.
Sometimes it means visiting someone who is feeling lonely,
or bringing food to someone who is hungry,
or giving a ride to someone who needs to get to the doctor or to church.
Living our lives in holiness and godliness,
in whatever form that may take,
means that our lives point toward Jesus,
and the love and grace of God.
We are waiting for God’s full redemption of our lives and this world,
and in the meantime, we are called to prepare the way
by offering our own lives to those in need.
Sometimes we are the ones in need,
and by the Grace of God may the Light of Christ break into our own lives.
Waiting is hard…
sometimes painfully hard.
Yet God is faithful to God’s promises,
and this is our hope.
Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
Come, O God, and walk among us.
Come, O God, and work through us.
Amen.
