Who is Your Messiah?

James 5: 7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Who is your Messiah?
3rd Sunday of Advent
December 12, 2010
Year A

I have a confession to make. I live in fear of Saturdays. No matter what have planned that day, and I try to do very little on Saturday. All that I can think about all day is getting my sermon done. Actually I am always afraid that something will happen and I will not have time to prepare my sermon, and that the sermon that I did three years will just not work. That is a pastor’s worse fear – that Saturday will come and go, and God will give me nothing to say. And will have to come to church unprepared.
Every Saturday for me is a time of anxious waiting for things to come together and to make sense.
When you think about it, Saturday is a lot like advent. Afterall Saturday is the day between Friday and Sunday. That probably doesn’t mean anything to you – for you Saturday is just another day. But Saturday is the day between Friday and Saturday. Friday – the day Jesus died, and Sunday – the day Jesus rose. Saturday is the day between good Friday and easter Sunday. Saturday is the day with no name, no meaning. Saturday is the day between the promise made and the fulfillment of that promise.
Saturday is the day where all we can do is wait…..

But waiting is not easy for us. We live in a world where everything is getting faster, easier, and quicker. We think we are supposed to have everything right now. In the age of instant coffee, instant television, instant relief from pain – we forget the value of patience. And yet it is in our patience that we learn to most about the nature of God.
Everyday is an unfolding of history and an unfolding of the promise of God. And with each passing day, we are smarter, we understand more and the stories of our lives start to make more and more sense.
One Christmas eve, a squirrel got caught in a families attic. He frantically tried to get out running around like crazy, The more they tried to rescue him, the more frantic he became. Until they set a box next to the attic and waited until things got dark and quiet and the squirrel felt safe enough to climb into the box and to be taken back outside. We have the same patience as that squirrel, when we know that we need to change, we are flailing every way but loose. We fight anyone who get close enough to try. We want to be free – but we are so frantic that every move that we make – seems to put us deeper into bondage. Until we learn to be still and realize that someone bigger than ourselves, someone like God has to come and set us free and make things better.
In our scripture for today – John the Baptist is sitting in prison. He has raised so much sand that he has irritated the King and his family and Herod has arrested him and put him on trial to be be killed. This was not what he expected at all when he signed up to work on behalf of God. He thought he would be rewarded for pointing the way to the messiah – not imprisoned.
I think John the Baptist in prison, is a symbol for us all – we too are imprisoned to our lives, our thoughts, our beliefs, our expectations, our broken dreams. All of those things keep us in bondage to the way things are. We are spending our lives waiting….. and waiting can take its toll on one’s soul and one’s faith. We can become disillusioned about the promises that have been made to us….
How else can you explain Jesus’ biggest proponent becoming Jesus biggest critic. He was disappointed in Jesus. In prison he sends word to Jesus - He ask – are you the messiah – or should I wait for another?
In other words – is this all there is? Or is there something better to come? Because sitting in prison waiting for my life to end – was not what I was waiting for.
The truth is, the Hebrew scriptures talk a lot about the messiah – but no one really knew what that meant, or who he was, or what was really supposed to happen when he came. John’s confusion about whether this was it or not, was the confusion of everyone.
We know the messiah means the Christ, the anointed one. It also means the one who is to come….but what is he supposed to come and do?
Many people voted for President Obama – because they were expecting a change. He promised hope for a better day- something that many of us could believe in.
Two years later many are disappointed. Was Obama really the one, we have waited this long, should we be waiting for another? Did Obama fail to live up to our preconceinved notions – or is it still Saturday – the time between the promise and fulfillment. Is it still advent?
It was not Obama’s promise that our lives would get better, it was God’s Everything happens in God’s time.
Dillusionment is not the same as disappointment. When we are disillusioned that means that we are stripped of our illusions of how things should be, so that we can see clearly how things really are.
John was dillusioned about who the messiah really was and what the messiah is supposed to do. Jesus never answers John’s question about whether he is really the messiah. He says – the blind walk, the prisoners go free, the lame walk. Everything that a messiah is supposed to do, jesus has done – you decide. Jesus has questions of his own. Questions for us – what did you go out into the desert to see? What were you looking for? What was going on in your life to lead you to looking for a messiah, and did you find it in ME or are you still looking?
Jesus tells us that those are questions he cant answer for us, we have to answer them for ourselves.
Did jesus fail to come to us when we rubbed our magic lamp – then perhaps that is because he is not a genie.
Did Jesus fail to punish all of your enemies when you prayed? Then perhaps Jesus is not a cop. Did Jesus fail to make everything run smoothly – then perhaps that is because jesus not mechanic.
It is our disappointments and our disillusionsments about what we expect Jesus to change in our lives – that help us to understand exactly what a messiah is supposed to do for us, but more importantly for the world. A messiah is as a messiah does. Has Jesus done something for you? Or are you still waiting for another? That is a question only you can answer.
The book of James talks about the fulfillment of the promise of God. It addresses a people who were impatient and waiting for Jesus and who started to believe that Jesus was not going to come. James reminds us to be patient. Be patient with ourselves, be patient with life, be patient with one another. Being patient is not idly waiting, but in living responsibly and working faithfully. And waiting expectantly for the one who is to come.

Finally I leave you with a version of chapter 13 of Corinthians for the Christmas season…..
1 CORINTHIANS 13 – - A CHRISTMAS VERSION -
By an unknown author
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights
and shiny balls, but do not show love, I’m just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing
gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not
show love, I’m just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I
have to charity, but do not show love, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a
myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on
Christ, I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn’t envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table
linens.
Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are
there to be in the way.
Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in
giving to those who can’t.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust, but
giving the gift of love will endure.


The way that you wait for the Christ this year is your choice.
The coming season is all about love – its about loving ourselves, it is about loving others, but most important it is about our choice to love God, whatever that means, whatever that leads us, whatever that brings to our lives.
Advent is our chance to wait for the one who comes……