Christmas feels like a season of waiting. Many of us can recall those
times when we were children, anxiously awaiting the last day of school before
Christmas break. We eagerly anticipated a time when we would be free from desks
and tests, for at least a couple of weeks. We can remember sitting on a couch
and looking out a snowy window, desperate to see the headlights of our distant cousins’
car pulling into the driveway. And who can forget the anticipation of sitting
on the living room floor and hoping that our parents would wake up soon in
order to open our presents? Patience is hard to practice this time of year for children-and
adults.
In this Advent season, a word which means “waiting,” we celebrate
the Christ who has already come into the world. We worship a Savior who lived a
perfect life, died an atoning death, and was raised to life in order to bring
life to all those who believe in Him. But imagine yourself living in Israel
hundreds of years before Christ was born and having heard the words of Psalm
110 –
“The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
From this Messianic Psalm, you understand that the Lord will come-eventually.
But you don’t know any of those details. When will He come? How will He come? What
does it mean to say that His enemies will be His footstool? Even the idea of a
Roman kingdom would have been completely foreign to you.
As Christians, who are on the other side of the Cross, the details
of the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ are known to us. We no longer
have to wait for the Messiah. We should certainly be thankful in this Christmas
season that these things have been revealed to us, and that we can know God and
His character more fully. When we hear of Christmas “joy”, we can rejoice in Jesus’
words in John 15:11 when He said “These things I have spoken to you, that my
joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” A greater knowledge of God
should lead us to worship Him with joy during this Christmas time. While
believers today have the blessing of knowing how God fulfilled His promises and
of how He answered the prayers of His people for a coming Messiah, many of us
may have unanswered prayers of our own. What can we learn from the Christmas
story about our response to God in these difficult situations?
The opening of Luke chapter 1 tells the story of how two
individuals, in similar situations, responded to uncertainty. First, Luke
describes the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. They had no children
because they were advanced in age and Elizabeth was barren. When the angel Gabriel
appeared to Zechariah to tell him that Elizabeth would bear a son, John, he
responded by saying “How shall I
know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1:18).
Later in the same chapter we read
that the same angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that Jesus would be
born. Mary replied “How will this be? Since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). At
first glance, both Zechariah’s response and Mary’s response sound similar. And
yet God reacted to Zechariah much differently than Mary. God shut Zechariah’s
mouth and he was unable to speak because he “did not believe my (God’s) words
which will be fulfilled in my (God’s) time.” Zechariah had asked for a sign because
he didn’t believe the words of Gabriel. How foolish was this response? What
more evidence did Zechariah need since an angel was standing right in front of
him? In contrast, Mary believed the words of Gabriel and her question was in
the form of “how will this happen?” That is, she believed God although she didn’t
understand how God would accomplish His will. Of course, we know the rest of the
story in that Mary remained a virgin; and Jesus was conceived through the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Greg recently preached a sermon from Mark 9 in which Jesus
cast out an evil spirit from a demonic boy. Jesus told the boy’s father “All
things are possible to him who believes.” And the father immediately cried “I
do believe; help my unbelief.” The object of the father’s faith, Jesus Christ,
holds the saving power; the power did not lie in the father’s faith itself. We repeatedly
see instances in the New Testament of imperfect faith, but a strong and perfect
God.
I think it’s reasonable to paraphrase Zechariah’s response to the
angel Gabriel by slightly modifying the words of the demonic boy’s father.
Zechariah may as well have said to Gabriel, “I don’t believe, help my unbelief.” This situation is the sinful
response that Christians should avoid. We may have been praying and waiting for
years for God to work in someone’s life, bring healing, or call someone to repentance.
Let us not lose hope and say, “God doesn’t hear my prayer” or “I
don’t believe that this is possible.” Instead, let us remember the words of
Isaiah 40:31
"but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint."
In this Advent season of waiting, may we cling to this promise in Isaiah. We can take comfort in knowing that those who wait patiently on the LORD will enter the new year with renewed strength and a zeal to worship God and know Him better.
Comments