| The Foundation of Lady Katherine Leveson at Temple Balsall | ||
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St
Mary's Church
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Advent Sunday Luke 21. 25 - 36 Sermon preached on 30th November 2003 by The season of Advent, like no other season in the Church's year, leads us into a waiting mode of living. I overheard a child in Tesco this week say to her brother "I can't wait for Christmas". In her eyes I glimpsed how children are caught up in the excitement of waiting. The experience of waiting is a common one and it shapes the rhythm of all our lives. We wait for trains, for the postman, or for pay day. When I think of waiting my own mind most immediately goes to the hospital as a place of waiting. Patients waiting at the start of the day for a bath, waiting for the doctor to come, for the bed to be made. They wait for the results of tests, for surgery, for the day of discharge or perhaps, they even wait for their death. One of the influences on my own theological thinking is a book by a writer called Bill Vanstone. In the stature of waiting he describes Jesus as a waiting figure - most clearly shown in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus discloses in that waiting, the deepest dimension of the glory of God - as he waits in exposure and helplessness for what is to come. When I think of Jesus, I think of him waiting, of him trusting, of him being open and vulnerable and exposed. Although the experience of waiting is a common human experience - we live in a world where we want or create a culture within which waiting is undesirable. This shapes our financial culture. Do you remember the advert with the first credit card: "Access takes the waiting out of wanting"? At regular intervals, the bank sends me offers for the loan of money with suggestions how to spend it. IT is a sharp contrast to my grandmother telling me before I went to university that I should never buy anything until I had saved up enough money to pay for it. We live in a world where we are promised that we can have what we want and have it now - and more than that, that we can have now what we do not want or need. Jesus shows us that waiting has its own value and dignity. Advent is the invitation to wait with hope for the future that is to come. God's future is not an invitation we find easy to accept. We live in a time when thoughts of the future may fill people with fear - and not with hope and joy. We must learn to hope, to rest, to pray and to wait. So think about waiting this week - and God's future promise as we prepare for Christmas. May this advent be for us a time when we open ourselves to God, waiting, ready to trust and to hope. I leave you with some words from W H Auden printed on your pew sheet:
The Reverend Dr James Woodward |
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