Expectations
What do you expect? One might hear that negatively, such as when someone fails to meet expectations and someone says it implying the person is not capable of much anyway, a sort of put down. One might hear it when someone asks for or prays for something unrealistic and another says it to them as a response, implying that you expect too much. Neither of these are very flattering usages, but what we expect is important. We can have negative expectations, or positive ones. Often our expectations cause us to behave in ways that will make the expected positive or negative outcome happen. Expectations are powerful for they shape who we are and how we respond to the world. They can affect how our children feel about themselves and whether they grow up to be positive or negative in their self-assessment and their reaction to the people around them, and the world at large. Sometimes, our religious beliefs and expectations can enhance our work in the world for God, and sometimes they can hinder it. Advent shows both sides of the issue of Advent expectation.
Some folk had certain expectations of what the Messiah would do. Most Jewish people expected, and some still expect, a Messiah that will politically liberate the people and teach them the way of God. It is the message of the Gospel that the people missed the Messiah because of their expectations; they were programmed to look elsewhere and did not see what God was doing in one tiny corner in a manger in Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus commanded and all the Roman World came to be taxed. The King Jesus had only a manger as a throne. Only his humble family, low status shepherds, and gentile Magi were open to God's possibilities. What do you expect? Will it cause you not to see God's coming in your life and in our world?
The other side of expectation is shown by those very people. Mary believes what the angel has said, risking even death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock. She says "Be it done to me according to your word". She is open to God's possibilities even when they are not according to accepted expectations, and even involve personal risk for her. Joseph risks social humiliation. Just when he is going to end the betrothal, an angel speaks to him in a dream to tell him to marry Mary because her child, the Coming One, is the work of God and is God's Son. Joseph accepts the message with the expectation that God is sovereign and can operate as God wills. The shepherds lived on the margins of society and they are open to hearing the angel’s message and responding by going and greeting the new born King. The Magi were high ranking astrologers, most likely in the Persian royal court. They are gentiles and therefore outcasts, and they practice fortune telling, an art forbidden in Jewish Law. Yet they are open to God's call to go on the long journey to find the infant King.
What does this tell us? Well, in a way it tells us to be open to all of God's possibilities. If our faith is so rigid it blinds us to God’s actions, something is wrong. In effect we are telling God that he must perform to our interpretation of his will. The result is that we may miss God's work entirely. It tells us that even religion can cause us to miss God. Many folks now think they know EXACTLY how Jesus will come back and when. The expectations are so rigid that it may cause them to miss what God is doing in the world now. Some of our Christian people have such narrow expectations about how God acts and through whom, that they can miss unexpected places in which God is working. Our God is a God of surprises. It makes faith alive with expectation. Sometimes our very faith, when too narrowly defined, can cause us to be spiritually asleep. The life of faith is intended to be alive with excitement. I wonder how many of us expect God's coming, not just at the end of time, but today. “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
As Advent dawns with Christmas soon to follow, what attitudes keep you from seeing Christ's coming? Where do you expect to see Christ today? Maybe a more important question would be, where are you not expecting to see God today? It may be just at that point where God is speaking to you. Think about it as we make the journey to the manger. Live in expectation, not just of Christ's coming at the end of time, but his coming today. Christ is here! "Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free"!
In Expectation,
Jim Stahr
What do you expect? One might hear that negatively, such as when someone fails to meet expectations and someone says it implying the person is not capable of much anyway, a sort of put down. One might hear it when someone asks for or prays for something unrealistic and another says it to them as a response, implying that you expect too much. Neither of these are very flattering usages, but what we expect is important. We can have negative expectations, or positive ones. Often our expectations cause us to behave in ways that will make the expected positive or negative outcome happen. Expectations are powerful for they shape who we are and how we respond to the world. They can affect how our children feel about themselves and whether they grow up to be positive or negative in their self-assessment and their reaction to the people around them, and the world at large. Sometimes, our religious beliefs and expectations can enhance our work in the world for God, and sometimes they can hinder it. Advent shows both sides of the issue of Advent expectation.
Some folk had certain expectations of what the Messiah would do. Most Jewish people expected, and some still expect, a Messiah that will politically liberate the people and teach them the way of God. It is the message of the Gospel that the people missed the Messiah because of their expectations; they were programmed to look elsewhere and did not see what God was doing in one tiny corner in a manger in Bethlehem. Caesar Augustus commanded and all the Roman World came to be taxed. The King Jesus had only a manger as a throne. Only his humble family, low status shepherds, and gentile Magi were open to God's possibilities. What do you expect? Will it cause you not to see God's coming in your life and in our world?
The other side of expectation is shown by those very people. Mary believes what the angel has said, risking even death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock. She says "Be it done to me according to your word". She is open to God's possibilities even when they are not according to accepted expectations, and even involve personal risk for her. Joseph risks social humiliation. Just when he is going to end the betrothal, an angel speaks to him in a dream to tell him to marry Mary because her child, the Coming One, is the work of God and is God's Son. Joseph accepts the message with the expectation that God is sovereign and can operate as God wills. The shepherds lived on the margins of society and they are open to hearing the angel’s message and responding by going and greeting the new born King. The Magi were high ranking astrologers, most likely in the Persian royal court. They are gentiles and therefore outcasts, and they practice fortune telling, an art forbidden in Jewish Law. Yet they are open to God's call to go on the long journey to find the infant King.
What does this tell us? Well, in a way it tells us to be open to all of God's possibilities. If our faith is so rigid it blinds us to God’s actions, something is wrong. In effect we are telling God that he must perform to our interpretation of his will. The result is that we may miss God's work entirely. It tells us that even religion can cause us to miss God. Many folks now think they know EXACTLY how Jesus will come back and when. The expectations are so rigid that it may cause them to miss what God is doing in the world now. Some of our Christian people have such narrow expectations about how God acts and through whom, that they can miss unexpected places in which God is working. Our God is a God of surprises. It makes faith alive with expectation. Sometimes our very faith, when too narrowly defined, can cause us to be spiritually asleep. The life of faith is intended to be alive with excitement. I wonder how many of us expect God's coming, not just at the end of time, but today. “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
As Advent dawns with Christmas soon to follow, what attitudes keep you from seeing Christ's coming? Where do you expect to see Christ today? Maybe a more important question would be, where are you not expecting to see God today? It may be just at that point where God is speaking to you. Think about it as we make the journey to the manger. Live in expectation, not just of Christ's coming at the end of time, but his coming today. Christ is here! "Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free"!
In Expectation,
Jim Stahr
posted by Theoblogger at
3:22 PM
