What Were You Expecting?

What were you expecting?

If your childhood pre-dates the digital age and the magic of Amazon.com, then you have memories of spending December pouring over that sacred text, the Sear’s Wish Book. That’s how you KNEW for sure it was Christmas, when that thing showed up in the mailbox.

These days, the retail world has other ways of getting our expectations up. They tell us to anticipate everything from diamonds to dazzling technology to a Lexus in the driveway with a giant bow on top. Seriously, who DOES that?

In this season of preparation, we are called to imagine and expect that God is about to do a new thing. But we know the trouble with expectations… Sometimes we fold under the weight of them. Maybe it is some shallow thing that doesn’t go right– the family Christmas card picture does not look like the L.L. Bean catalogue after all. Or the turkey is burned or your mom and your brother dredge up that ancient feud again and ruin dinner. Again. These hurts and disappointments seem amplified ten-fold if we were harboring visions of Norman Rockwell festivities in our heads. Often, it is our own misplaced expectations that keep us from the joy of what is.

So we learn to check those expectations. Not just the stuff about the turkey and the stocking and the greeting card pic.  We are grown ups, we can deal with that kind of disappointment. I’m talking about much deeper expectations– kingdom kinds of expectations. Because with this whole Christmas gig, God has made us some pretty epic promises. What are we really expecting all of that to look like, in the flesh?

In the gospel of Matthew, those promises are voiced by John the Baptist. He assures his followers that he is not the one they’ve been waiting on. The one who will truly meet all their expectations–beyond their wildest dreams– is coming after him. His followers want so badly for HIM to be the one they’ve waited for. But he tells them that when Jesus comes along, they will know it, The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, the dead will be raised, and the poor will be brought up higher… any of this sounding familiar, like a song you’ve heard before?

It bears echoes of Mary’s Magnificat in Luke’s gospel, and of the prophet Isaiah before her. The voices of Isaiah, Mary, and John all blend to harmonize on a common theme– the new creation that God is bringing about in the coming Messiah.

Much of scripture hints at this new thing God is dreaming up in the desert. But there were some radically different ideas floating around about what that would actually look like, when it came about. Was it going to mean political and military victory? Would it be the end times, like some kind of rapture/zombie apocalypse situation? Could it be a peaceable kingdom, with a new prince from David’s line at the head? Depends on who you ask. It turns out, maybe even Jesus and John maybe have had different ideas about the details of this new kingdom.

John’s vision for the kingdom of heaven leans a little more toward the apocalyptic… lots of literal resurrection of the dead, in a firey scenario. It was a kingdom-come kind of future– one that seems in many ways like a far-off and later kind of fulfillment.

But Jesus comes by another way. He will heal and bring peace and give dignity to the poor–with him, the kingdom is something real and present and tangible. A vision that is alive and breathing, now–the word made flesh. In Jesus, that far-off God is brought near. Closer than breath.

In this breath of expectation, we find ourselves… Bringing our own expectations to the stable. Checking in with our baggage, just like we do every Christmas. What is it that we’re waiting for? We should dig deep and ask that of ourselves. Because 2 weeks from now, Jesus will be born. Right on schedule, right on his due date. But, I don’t know about you, I look around at the world we live in right now, and say… So what?

Scripture and tradition tell us to expect miracles right about now. That this kid is going to show up and heal the sick and the lame, and pound all the guns into tractors or something. He’ll transform mourning into dancing, feed the hungry, bring peace to our warring planet and maybe even cool the earth that is trying to melt beneath our feet. But we did this last year too. And the year before that, and possibly for a few before that. We did Christmas. We did the whole Jesus being born thing.  And yet, the world looks much as it did before. There is still sickness; there are still guns; there is still conflict, and hunger, and deep grief, and Lord knows, the poor still wait for good news.

So if we are waiting for a sudden flash of light, a transformation of the world’s every ill, then I bet we will be disappointed. If we want a nicely wrapped up Christmas story, with every promise fulfilled and every plot line wrapped up… we might come up empty.

And Jesus asked of the people, “What did you come out to the wilderness to see? What are you expecting?”

Maybe we want a political savior, who comes with strong military backup. Scripture tells us we would not be the first to await that kind of ruler. Maybe we are looking for salvation by legislation–some law that bans weapons, protects children, and saves the environment; or we want a radical prophet who will bring us a swift end to racism and bigotry; an economist who can end world hunger; or a shepherd who comes in peace.

I want all those things, actually. Don’t you? And sooner would be better than later. But. I figure if any of those saviors were available to us, they’d have shown up by now. If that was the way God got things done, these things would already be done. No, I think Jesus invites us to another way. A better way. The way of small glimpses and graces; the way of a slow dawning light; the way of miracles that require our participation; the way of incarnation; the word made flesh, and joy that comes in the morning.

Maybe we don’t always get the whole story– at least, not all at once. But we do get the joy of children singing; we get the peace that settles when we release some of our own desires, and breathe into God’s unfolding dream for the world; we do get the witness of those who open their homes to strangers, who care for the poor, who work for a better here and now kind of kingdom. And, in all these things, an invitation–clear and consistent, voices in the wilderness calling us to come out and see in tangible, living ways. It calls us to come and step into the unfinished story; and instead of looking for the figure in the glowing white robe, the star of some future happy ending, we live that love into being. Beyond our own wildest expectations.