“You, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know when the master of the household will return—in the evening, at midnight, before dawn, or at daybreak. Don’t let him find you sleeping when he arrives without warning. I say to you what I say to everyone: Watch for him!” – Mark 13:35-37, NLT 

Recently I received in the mail the “Amazon Holiday Kids Gift Catalogue,” which brought to my mind its ancient predecessor the “Sears Wish Book for the Christmas Season.” When that book of wonder hit our mailbox in September, we would spend hours scouring through it. We would dog-ear our favorite pages and circle the items we hoped to receive on Christmas morning. After carefully and critically making our selections, usually by the beginning of October, we would plop down on the couch by our parents to show them our choices. Then came the long and difficult period of watching and waiting for Christmas Day to arrive. 

We are in Advent, the season of the Church that leads to Christmas. As Carness and Daniel have pointed out the past two Sundays in worship, Advent, from the Latin “adventus,” means “coming” or “arrival.” In this season, we are awaiting with a posture of expectation the arrival of Christmas morning and the celebration of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. I believe it was C.S. Lewis who called Jesus’ birth the “great intrusion.” Yet, the season of Advent points us forward to Christ’s second coming, when He will “intrude” again on our world. In His first intrusion, He came as a vulnerable infant under the care of a peasant couple, Mary and Joseph. In His second coming, “the Son of Man will come with power and great glory” (Matt 24:30; Mk 13:26; Lk 21:27).  

We are instructed to wait with a posture of expectation by “watching.” It will be a great day for us, and for all creation, as the Lord makes all things right and all things new. Evil and all its expressions will finally be destroyed. As you’ve heard me say before, a good God cannot allow evil to continue forever. He must deal with it, or God simply is not good after all. All of creation will be remade and renewed to God’s original intention (see Rev. 21-22).  

“But it’s been 2,000 years and He still has not returned,” we protest. Such complaints aren’t new. They were occurring around 64 A.D. near the time of the Apostle Peter’s death. Peter responds by writing to the Church,  

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is beingpatient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed but wants everyone to repent (2 Peter 3:9, NLT).  

Recently, our Senior Staff completed reading though 1 & 2 Peter together. We discussed the tension we live with as we watch and wait with the hopeful expectation of Christ’s second advent. We pray, “Come, Lord Jesus,” while we also give thanks to God for His great patience. Each of us know people who have yet to come to know God’s great love for them in Jesus Christ and accept Him as their Savior. As Advent people who celebrate Christ’s first arrival while awaiting His second arrival, one aspect of faithfully watching and waiting is to pray for those who don’t yet know Him and offer a grace-filled witness, which as you may remember, is one of the core values of Christ Church. In fact, being a witness for Christ is exactly what Jesus charged the disciples with prior to His ascension saying, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8, NLT). In these in-between times, we watch, we wait, we witness, trusting that through the Holy Spirit, God is on the move bringing more into the kingdom.