Waiting John McCormick Buchanan
Luke 1:57-79 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
December 15, 1974 Columbus, Ohio

In the Gospel according to Luke there is a long and elaborate euesrten chapter
which precedes the story of Jesus' birth.| The section heaueerabesdonaked~es—tiee

iiiiiomaaapitiimpiaiaeraeeameed includes material contained in none of the other
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Gospels.\ The story of the "Annunciation" is found here | that unlikely encounter
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between the young fiance of Joseph, and Gabriel - angel of the Lord - during which

Mary is told that she will conceive and bear a son.[tary's response, known to the

Church down through the centuries as the "Magnificat", follows the announcement:
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| "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has

regarded the low estate of His handmaiden."

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That is in the middle of the chapter:|wrapped around it -at the beginning and
end - is another story, a rather long and complex account that deals with Zechariah,
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his wife Elizabeth, and their soon-to-be-born Son, who will be named John,
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Wo one PAs wwe athewhio ye firs cley. oF Love &

LitAi SO fecbiiaminatanaierymistntieisianiictmitlemtGtlimeGEeiiaiath .|In fact it's a

little like those books weduemebbeweed which require a good hour of hard_reading

before the plot actually begins | nesides, we Protestants are a little embarassed
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by all the attention paid to Mary in the First Chapter of Luke, and subsequently

by our Roman brethren across the centuries Jou: method of dealing with what has
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become a very important element in Roman Catholic tradition has been notoriously

to ignore it \ wary may have born) fed, weaned , raised and lived with Jesus, but
you wouldn't know that in most Protestant Churches except for a minor part she
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plays in a few Christmas Carols,
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In any event that's not essential to what I wish to think about with you this
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norning, but the other story is Ar would submit that the materjgl is in the_third

Gospel for a reason = a reason, I have concluded, that is rather important and I
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should like to discuss it with you under the title "Waiting".
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But first, let's get reacquainted with the prineipads.\rn the fifth

verse of the first chapter we are introduced to a most interesting couple:

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Zechariah, a devout priest of the Temple, an old man and his equally aged wife,
ELizabeth.\ they had no children and it was a matter of deep concern to them.

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Although long past the time when conception ordinarily occurs, old Zechariah
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continued to pray fervently that he would be given a child, and that his_wife

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might be spared the special Hebrew sti described negatively and coldly as

"barreness",
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One day, as he was taking his priestly turn burning incense in the Temple,
zechariah had a vision:\nis wife would conceive and bear a son to be named John.
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When Zechariah emerged from the Temple to bless the people according to_custom,
he was speechless - an appropriate response to such a dramatic experience, except
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that his speechlessness extended throughout the period of Elizabeth's pregnancy.
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It is then: that the announcement comes to Mary: |tuke describes a meeting
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between Elizabeth and Mary - kinswomen, relatives :\ana the fact that somehow

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Elizabeth recognized the tremendous significance of what was transpiring.
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"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" Elizabeth

said to Mary.

When Elizabeth bore a son her friends rejoiced | And when she and her still
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speechless husband took him to the Temple on the 8th day for circumcision,
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everyone assumed that he would be named after his cather.\g1izabeth protested and

when Zechariah was consulted he asked for a tablet and wrote:(""His name is ohn". |

Suddenly he was able to speak again, and he said quite a ist. Listen to Zechariah:

| "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has
visited and redeemed His people.cecs
And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High:
————
for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways.

to give light to those who sit in darkness and

the shadow of death,to guide our feet into the way of peace."

That hymn of praise, from the lips of a man who had been speechless for nine

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months, had waited_a_long time to be said. And waitine is ’ wee® the season of Advent,

Advent has been described as a time of leaning forward in anticipation, straining

to see what will happen next.

Now, one would be naive to try to simplify the phenomenon called the Christmas
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spirit in our cuLeure,| 12 is anything but sinple:\ there are overtones and

undertones that are subtle and powerful and deeply human. |christmas arouses us

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eno tional ty:| experiences that are common, everyday, suddeply, at Christmas, become

lovely, touching, stgntgicant | Love is more intense, | pain is more painful,
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loneliness unbearable, \ generosity obviously more real.\rt s almost as if our

intellects, spirits and emotions are on edge - raw - sensitive.
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And beneath it all, I would submit , is the very real human experience of

waiting .| Ordinarily we would not assign much significance to waiting ror busy

Americans waiting is frustration, time Lost, time wasted \ wo agony is quite as
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exquisite for a busy man or woman, than spending the afternoon in a Doctor's
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office - in a "waiting room” .\ Bu I am suggesting that there is theologica
significance in that experience and that it has to do with what we are about in
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the Christmas season,
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Zechariah and Elizabeth waited all their lives for a son,jAnd the important
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thing to understand is that when the son was born, it punctuated a reality for
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them far greater than the birth itself.
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The birth of John meant that the waiting was over )\not only_waiting for
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a child = but for God to act. te has neppened" Zechariah proclaimed: (x not

only have a son, but now there is light in the darkness and peace." |

The Bible is full of people waiting | one sense the Bible is a story

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about waiting:| the Hebrew tribes waiting for years in Egyptian slavery: the same

tribes wandering around the wilderness of Sinai for forty years, waiting to
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settle in a land of their ov: | centuries later they are waiting again, this time

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in Babylon - for freedom | waiting over the centuries for God's final act of

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redemption, waiting for the Day of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah.} And to

bring it immediately into focus, those same people, past New Testament, waited
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from 70 A.D. until 1947, dispersed throughout the world, pushed into ghettoes,
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concentration camps and finally gas chambers, waiting for a restoration, a home,
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freedom, and their waiting for peace and light, in the shadow of death is not yet over,
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Waiting is no small natter| it is certainly more significant than merely
passing time in the context of the pibie./ and the common thread between that and
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our own experience is that much of human life - our lives - is invested in
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waiting.

Helmut Thielicke, German theologian, observes that waiting is "the burden, the
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driving force to say nothing of the privilege of nankind.'| ow To Believe Again. ram
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Waiting is certainly an early human expertence,| Second only to (wet sec",)
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(wast) is probably my most frequent verbal transaction with my own children. And
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they both mean the same thing.\ ratele children wait for that grand day when they go
off to school: |they wait impatiently to be big enough to play footbal:| they wait
for the years to bring them to the event of the first date:| they wait for college,

graduation, narriage | As I look back on it now I realize how much time in college
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was invested in waiting to get out and on with 1ite\we wait for children,

for a better job, a promotion, a new house. | Sometimes ~ many times, (and here
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comes the theology again)- life seems to stand still and we find ourselves
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waiting without knowing what we are waiting for \ we wait for freedom, leisure,
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retirement | and one of the new problems precipitated by extended life-expectancy

is how to prevent people in residential_care centers and homes for the aged from

doing nothing but waiting for death.

What are we waiting gor! what is it about us that causes us to be unable to
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live fully in the present because of our preoccupation with the future?| Langdon
Gilkey suggests that, rte ereat middle class, especially its executive and
professional leaders - even those who comment learnedly on this same theme -
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find it almost impossible just to "be", and merely to enjoy some aspect of their
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present beings» food, talk, beauty, sleep, rest or tove.\ ror many of us, all

meaning involves activity that builds something to be enjoyed at some future time" |

(Naming the Whirlwind P.338) \ ra is to say, we are obsessed with essed vith waiting) And
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\pelieves
Wayne Oates, a highly regarded Southern Baptist, hekds that we get_caught in this
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waiting and wishing asiy for some far off date in the future to the degree that
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we cease to function as persons in the present | Oates titled his book, significantly,
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(me Confessions of a Workaholic. )

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What are we waiting cor? ty this deep expectancy that the future will fulfill
what is unfulfilled in the presenth

Some of the keenest literary minds have had a go at that. same Beckett in
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his play Waiting for Godot suggests that there is something for which all men

wait and without which life has little neaning.\ 100 tramps wait, day_in and day out,

for Godot - who never appears | In their waiting they talk nonsense, inconsequentials,

just empty chatter.\t# only Godot would come they would know what to do next,
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6.
But Godot never comes, and one is left with the rather dismal conclusion
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that nothing in life really matters very much:\that whatever it is we are

anticipating, it isn't evemr going to happen.
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Arthur Miller in the classic Death of a Salesman tells the depressing story
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of a small-town salesman, Willie Loman, whose entire life-time is spent waiting
for something great to happen \Waiting is what keeps him going: and when it
becomes clear that nothing great_is ever going to happen he begins to come apart

at the seams and fina 1ly takes bis own life.

I believe we can find ourselves in that if we are candid | 1 think we are
Wentisy
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waiting - much of the time:\waiting for something we can't quite empuesec. waiting
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for something as vague as Godot and as important_as Willie Loman's drean.| 1

believe all of us are waiting for "it" to happen, even though we may not know

what "it" is.

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Disraeli, Emerson, Longfellow - in one form or another suggested that
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"Everything comes if a man will only wate", \elt, maybe.\ And‘maybe not.
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What is it?|For what are we waiting?|I'm inclined to look again to old
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Zechariah as he sensed that his waiting was over.|tn his burst of oratory he said
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something about a (‘cay dawning from on high - giving light to those who sit in

darkness and the shadow of decks ne

Aren't we really waiting
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Isn't that it?\Is there a better way to describe it?
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for something or someone to tell us that our lives make gense:|that there is a God?
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Aren't we waiting for a sense of wholeness in the present - at-homeness in our world?
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Aren't we waiting for some sense that our relationships with our wives and husbands
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and children and parents and loved ones are permanent$-that our death or theirs
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does not terminate those relationships?
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7.
Aren't we waiting to know that death will not be the final and only
answer to our cugstion faren't we really rather well-described as Frcopte sitting
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in darkness'¥- or working frantically in the darkness - as the case may be, but

in any event, waiting in the shadow of death?
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Aren't we waiting for what the Jews meant when they used the word "salvation"?
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That's the word Zechariah uttered when he Looked at “his infant son John,| That's
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what Israel waited for:| that's the content of all that waiting for the Messiah:
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and that, I am suggesting, is what is behind and beneath the universal human

experience of waiting.
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The remarkable assertion of the old priest Zechariah is that the waiting is
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over not simply his life of waiting for a son; but the universal human waiting
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for salvation. a has happened} the shadow of death is banished, \there is_light

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TE Ww 4 7 7
in the darkness peace, wholeness, "shalom" is now possible in the present, because

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tek ok «=6|\Marys clad
in mercy and love and tenderness God is coming among us. a Pie a4 veg me ahd AWwat

Sore ofF vision oF “salvalim ” betommes an immed ioste reeliy .

I'm glad Luke preserved that story for us, because it is as contemporary as
the waiting which you and I experience every day. and it speaks to us_as we lean

forward in anticipation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.] Our

ns © \U *
waiting is over. | ond Gs We war for Sovne Geuse 6 for Fi went
Beymer Ames

There is a sequel to the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and their infant son
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which serves well as a guppuemeee to the heady Christmas spirit, however. \vears
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later Zechariah's son-, known as John_the Baptist, sent a messenger to Jesus
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asking if he really were the one, or should they look for another:| should they

resume their waiting?|that is to say, every day is not Christmas, ww Knowing that
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our waiting is over does not mean that a person_will be bubbling with peace,
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wholeness and salvation twenty four hours a day, every day.
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@ an ja the Bible. 2ven the men around Jesus — ven John le ‘Bop vv ~had cay s
when They Were enable ft vee the Stage tf bid iq Phere mids, Dreys when they

fl as they were shill wiectras jn Wor bnes3. 7

8.

That is why it is necessary to observe a Christmas once a year: |not
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simply to remember the birth but to celebrate the reality the birth signals =

Because "it" happens only occasionally for most of us, with a lot of waiting
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in between, ~ @ lot or siting in the Aarkustss...

But every now and then it breaks through, in the highly-charged anticipation

of Advent. in the faces of Little children,| in the words of a beloved carol, and

we know deeply within ourselves that the waiting is over.
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Hear again the words of that singularly fortunate first man to experience

what I have been trying to deseriber| old zechariah, his voice returned at the
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birth of a SOn.ccee
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[esse be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and
redeemed his people.eoo
And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.oe.
to give knowledge of salvation to His people:
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death:| to guide our feet into the way of peace."

————

Amen.

Father, each of us is waiting - forChristmas, but more than that really.
We wait, Father, for good news, for your word of love, for the assurance

of your Kingdom in our midst. Help us to hear and see - through Jesus Christ

Amen. /

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fael am a a ia har gpeer ,

our Lord,