Fails to Meet Expectations

The Holy Gospel According to St. John, the 1st Chapter

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the

Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. 

Fred had one specific expectation about Christmas... that his kids would come home.  That worked fine until Fred’s youngest daughter’s husband became a pastor.  Every year, without fail, Fred would ask us if we were planning on coming home to Alabama for Christmas and every year, without fail, we would have to explain how a pastor skipping out of town before Christmas was frowned upon and so we wouldn’t be able to be there for Christmas.

  

I think we all have Christmas expectations.  My expectation for Christmas involves a big Swedish Smorgasbord on Christmas Eve, opening presents and going to the late service at church.  Becoming a pastor and leading two, three and in one church I served, FOUR Christmas Eve services meant my expectations needed to change.  Then, when Kelly became a flight attendant, inevitably working on Christmas, we stopped even trying to do it all on that day.  Now we usually just eat Chinese take out in between services (because they’re the only places open) and just move our family Christmas traditions to a completely different day.  It’s SO much better!    

But it’s not just Christmas that comes with strong expectations.  The things in our life that carry lots of meaning also carry strong expectations.  How we want our church to look and feel, for instance, can also be a very strong expectation.  Smart research types say that the church you attended when you were 11 years old is most often the church you subconsciously look for or try to re-create for the rest of your life, no matter how long ago age 11 was for you.   So people work, sometimes not even knowing why, to shape their current congregation so it looks and feels like the congregation they knew when they were 11.  They expect their congregation to be that way because deep down, at some primal, human development level, that is simply the RIGHT way for church to be!  

It’s with those sorts of passionate, firm and primal expectations that the religious leaders came out into the wilderness to meet John the Baptist.  They had locked in their minds and deep down in their hearts, the way God SHOULD work... how the Messiah WOULD come and what the Messiah MUST be like.  What they found instead... was John.  “I am not the Messiah”…oh.  “I am not Elijah”…oh.  “I am not the prophet”…oh.  How disappointing to come to the wilderness full of specific hopes and expectations that this is THE ONE who you have been waiting for; THE ONE just like you have imagined in your mind for generations and he turns out to be… just John, a loud guy wearing itchy cloths and eating bugs.

John just didn’t follow their script.  He was different…VERY different and the official’s expectations were clear and John clearly did not meet expectations.  This is the way God WILL act; not any other way but this way…our way…my way.  But as you look throughout the scriptures, and especially the ones having to do with Jesus, we see over and over and over again that God just doesn’t seem to follow ANYONE’S script!  Pharisees, Sadducees, Romans, kings and even Jesus’ own disciples had clear expectations, but God just doesn’t do what was expected... God does what is needed.  The trouble is that those expectations, that God seems to throw out over and over again throughout Scripture, are the same things that are so familiar and make us feel safe, comfortable and secure.  God seems to continually take our perfectly comfortable expectations and just throw them into the trash and then without asking for our permission, goes off and does something completely different!  

That’s what happened when the officials came to see John.  John just didn’t do it right... and later Jesus didn’t do it right either! The officials didn’t want God to break into their lives and TRANSFORM them... to CHANGE them into what God wanted them to be.  Change and transformation after all, is uncomfortable and THEY came into the wilderness looking and expecting something that would meet or exceed expectations!  So, when John and Jesus didn’t allow them to stay comfortable, they jumped up and down, pouted and stomped their feet, ran around town complaining about John and Jesus not doing things the way they expected and eventually they got rid of both of them, because in the end, it was simply easier to get rid of them and insist that they weren’t really from God, than live through the change and transformation God had in mind for them.  

With over 2000 years of hindsight working for us, we can see NOW that the Priests and Levites and all the other officials had it wrong.  It really was God who sent John the Baptist and Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  NOW we can see that God was indeed doing something VERY different and the officials were just too set in their ways, too comfortable, too focused on their own expectations to see that God was doing a new thing.  

One of the reasons we tell this story every year is so that we can remember that God OFTEN works in ways we don’t expect… that God continually works outside of the places we find comfortable and traditional and familiar.  This lesson calls us each year to open our hearts and our minds to the possibility that God is at work in places that don’t look anything like the church we had when we were 11 years old and that the Church isn’t really meant to be a place of comfort and warm fuzzy feelings.  It’s meant to be an instrument that God is using to transform the world from the way it is now, into the Kingdom that God brought into being with Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  

I’ll be the first to admit that isn’t comfortable.  I would personally LOVE to recreate Holy Trinity Lutheran Church... my age 11 church, complete with a circular sanctuary, a towering steeple in the middle and Pastor Wally Nelson.  Just the thought of it feels comfortable... it feels... right!  It may feel right, returning to what is familiar and comfortable... the trouble is, it’s just not faithful.  John is not calling us to return to the comfort of the past but is always pointing us forward into the Light, to follow the path of Christ and transform the world not into what we expect or want or feel comfortable with, but into the Kingdom that God where the lowly are lifted up and the powerful are cast down.

That’s what Advent is all about, you know… not just preparing to celebrate Jesus’ birth back then, but learning again to expect the unexpected and get ready once again to follow our Messiah who promises to make all things new!  May we, this Advent give thanks for the the past and the birth of our Savior AND may we let go of our expectations for the future and allow and welcome God to do new and incredible things in us, around us and through us in the year to come!  Amen.