"What Were You Expecting?"

Advent 3A: 12-15-13

Sermon Texts: Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 1:47-55; Mathew 11:2-11

What Were You Expecting?

One of my favorite movies that plays this time of year is A Christmas Story.  There’s something about the way this movie plays out, the plight of a 9 year old at Christmas time as he desperately tries to ensure that he receives the one thing that he wants most in the world for Christmas that year, the lengths to which he goes to just survive Christmas as he battles bullies, faces department store Santas, and hits the brick wall time and time again from adults who warn him that if he gets the Red Ryder BB gun he wants, he’ll just “Shoot his eye out.”  For me, this is a movie that captures the essence of families at Christmas time - the exciting buzz of anticipation that surrounds these weeks leading up to Christmas, the moments we share in our families that turn into legends and stories that are told and retold for years to come.

There's a classic scene in the film where Ralphie, in the midst of his frenzied quest for the Red Ryder BB Gun, receives another item for which he'd been anxiously waiting.  Throughout the movie, we see him checking the mail, opening the box and sighing in impatient frustration that the package he's been waiting for is not lying inside.  But then this one last time he opens the box and there it is, the envelope addressed to "Master Ralphie Parker."  He tears into the parcel and dumps out its contents, revealing the Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring that he had saved up and mailed in boxtops to receive.  He listens to the radio program, waiting with the bouncing anticipation that marks the very essence of being nine years old, until the moment when the radio announcer delivers the secret message for that week.  And then, like a bolt of lightning, Ralphie dashes up to the bathroom, "The only place where a boy could decode in peace."  His brow furrowed and his brother wailing in the background and waiting his turn to go to the bathroom, Ralphie works with an unholy fervor to decipher the message from Little Orphan Annie, knowing that lives may hang in the balance if he does not unravel the mystery in time.  The tension mounts higher and higher as each letter comes more firmly into place until... finally... as little Randy's bladder has only seconds left to spare outside the bathroom door, Ralphie works out the last piece of the puzzle and Annie's message is laid bare before him: BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.  A crummy commercial that leaves Ralphie with a bitter taste in his mouth and his first true experience of commercial letdown.

Ralphie’s experience is one that is familiar and common for many of us - we’ve had the experience of building ourselves up for something, hearing the sheer excitement from others about it, seeing the commercials and the previews and thinking that this, above all else, would be the movie, toy, or gadget to put all others to shame.  We read everything we can about it.  We talk about it with our friends and go over every detail in depth, speculating and debating with one another about it.  And then that moment comes - we see the movie, open the box with the toy or gadget in it and play with it for a bit.  And it’s nothing like what we expected.  We send the item back, we go to the ticket counter and expect a refund.  We’re disappointed, upset, even angry about our expectations not being met.  We start to wonder why we’d been so excited in the first place.

It was the same way with Jesus for many people during his time - especially during his early ministry.  John the Baptist, the same man whom we only last week heard crying out in the wilderness declaring the one who will come after him who is greater than he and who will baptize in fire, now sits imprisoned, hearing news of what Jesus is doing.  He hears about Jesus healing the sick, befriending fishers and tax collectors, spending time with the kind of people that John was warning to repent or be cut off.  It’s kind of surprising, to say the least, if not even… disappointing.  John had built up some great expectations of Christ in his head - he’d visioned a pretty extreme Messiah, riding in with judgment and swift justice.  The babe whom angels announced and wise men adored seems to have started out well… but now John’s not so sure about his cousin.  So John sends some of his own followers to Jesus with a message:  Are you “he who is to come,” or have we wasted our breath?  Do we follow you, or do we wait for someone else who has better qualifications?

Jesus’ answer is interesting - Jesus doesn’t out and say “Yes, I am the Messiah.”  In fact, he never does boldly proclaim this fact in any way that speaks to himself directly.  Jesus’ answer  instead echoes some of the very things we hear in the reading from Isaiah today: The weak hands being strengthened, the feeble knees being made firm, the fearful and poor being given good news, the blind, deaf, and diseased being healed - all were visible signs that the kingdom of heaven was, in fact, here just as Jesus was proclaiming.  And if the kingdom of God is here, then the natural conclusion John should be making is that so is the Messiah.

Jesus seems to have a pretty good understanding even this early in his ministry just how different he is turning out to be from what the people around him are expecting.  But he doesn’t let it faze him in the least - instead, he actually gives John affirmation and encouragement even near the end of John’s own ministry while simultaneously challenging the very expectations of the crowds.  “What did you expect when you went out to hear John’s message, both about John himself and about the Messiah he proclaimed?  Were you expecting “a reed shaken in the wind?”  Someone who would tell you exactly what you wanted to hear?  No - you went out to see a prophet!  And this was the very prophet that was prophesied in the scriptures, preparing the way for the kingdom.”  And if this was what the Messiah’s prophet would be like, if this prophet wasn’t a posh king in soft robes, then does it make any sense to expect the same of a Messiah?

This season of Advent, we find that not much has really changed - we’re still awaiting our Messiah - we’re just waiting for him to come back.  It’s still a time of excitement, still a time for us to be anxious and looking forward to Jesus’ return… but it also means a time of building expectations of our own.  That makes Advent a perfect time to ask: What are we expecting of our Messiah?  What kind of ideas have we formed about the Christ for ourselves at this time of year?  Are we looking for a savior who who lets us sit nicely in our comfort zones, surrounded by people who are just like us, and who never challenges the way we see our world?  Does our Jesus tell us what we want to hear, or what we need to hear?

Christ’s ministry on earth was a call to a complete and revolutionary realignment with God and with the values of God’s kingdom - Christ came to free his people and to conquer their enemies, yes, but the enemy Jesus frees us from is not Rome, but ourselves and our helplessness to sin.  Christ brings justice, but he brings it in a greater way than we can even begin to imagine.  Christ came to be a king - our king - not a king on a golden throne, in plush robes living in the lap of luxury, but the king in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and bouncing on the knee of a carpenter.  And out of the least and lowliest circumstances comes the greatest of kings, who inaugurates a kingdom so great that even John the Baptist, whom Jesus calls the greatest “among all those born of women,” cannot compare to the least person in the kingdom of heaven.  And this, brothers and sisters, this is the kingdom into which we have been not only adopted and invited, but we have also been given the vital opportunity to participate in, as well.  So Come - let us walk in the Light of the Lord!  To God be the Glory.  Amen.