The Second Sunday of Advent

“The Waiting Place”

Mark 1:1-8

Rev. Rhonda A. Blevins

The Waiting Place . . . for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

A nugget of truth from my favorite theologian, Dr. Seuss. “Everyone is just waiting.”

Waiting is not the activity of choice in our world of instant gratification. On Friday I was surfing the internet and found a piece of sheet music that I wanted. I went through the steps to purchase the music, placing it in my virtual shopping cart, going to the virtual checkout counter, and then the virtual checker asked me, “Do you want to wait 10-12 days on shipping or do you want it now.” Instantly I virtually said, “I want it NOW!” I went through the virtual “get it now” door, and then guess what happened? The internet shut down. The sheet music was not in my virtual hands! As soon as the internet came back up (it took forever, like 10 seconds or so) I sent a virtual letter to the company and told them my dilemma. Within the hour the sheet music was in my hands . . . flesh and blood holding a glorious sheet of instant gratification.

We’re not good at waiting, yet far more often than we’d like, we find ourselves in the waiting place.

At my house we’re waiting for the day when our little boy will be out of diapers. What a glorious day that will be! It’s a waiting that’s full of hope because we wait for something we really want.

There’s another kind of waiting, though. Sometimes we wait for something we don’t want. I asked church members, Ed and Judy Morris, if I could tell their story about the not-so-fun waiting place they’re in right now. Their son, Brad, is a pilot for the shipping company, DHL. Back in May Brad learned that his company would be shutting down deliveries within the U.S. and that he, along with a vast majority of the company’s 13,000 U.S. employees, would be laid off. Brad has been looking for another job, but the job market for pilots is terrible. So Brad and his wife, Debby, and their two kids are waiting. Judy told me that the most stressful part for them is trying to sell their house. Now that they’ve been told that January 30 will be the last day of employment for Brad with DHL, hope is growing dim that the house will sell. It’s a scary time for them. They’re waiting, but I imagine that their waiting is with a sense of dread, knowing that January 30 will present difficult challenges they’d rather not face.

Sometimes our waiting is more ambivalent, with both hope and dread, because the future is simply unclear. You may know Shirley Bierkamp who works in our office. I asked Shirley if I could tell her story about a difficult waiting place she found herself in a few years ago. Shirley’s son, Wayne, was serving as a United States Marine in 2003 when the war in Iraq began. He was among those brave men and women who fought during the first wave of the invasion. He saw fierce combat during the Battle of An-Nasiriyah, sometimes called the bloodiest battle of the war. 29 U.S. soldiers died, dozens were wounded, and several more (including Private Jessica Lynch) were taken as prisoners of war. Wayne’s company had an embedded reporter with them, and Shirley watched the 24-hour news cycle not knowing if her baby boy would live to see another day. Shirley’s waiting place was filled with hope, hopeful that her son would survive the ugliness of war. It was also filled with dread, for there was a very real possibility that Wayne would sacrifice his life in service to his country.

We all find ourselves in a waiting place from time to time.

In our scripture lesson today, the children of Israel were waiting for a Messiah . . . someone to come and liberate them from Roman oppression. In the middle of their waiting place a messenger appeared. His name was John. He told the people that the one they were waiting for was coming. He preached hope to men and women who were weary from waiting. The Savior is Coming! Be strong! Take heart! Wait. But in the meantime there’s something you must do.

The Israelites stood in the waiting place with no control over when their promised Messiah would come.

The waiting place is always a place where we have limited control. If it were up to me, Jake would be potty trained today. Unfortunately, I don’t have that much control. If it were up to Ed and Judy, their son would find a steady job as a pilot today. Unfortunately, Ed and Judy don’t have that much control. If it had been up to Shirley, young Wayne would have been enjoying a life of peace and tranquility instead of dodging mortar rounds. Unfortunately, Shirley didn’t have that much control.

When we find ourselves in the waiting place we must acknowledge that some things are outside of our control. However, the waiting place is not a place of passivity.

“In the meantime, there’s something you must do” said John the Baptizer. “Repent!” he told the crowds that came out to see him. The word literally means to “turn.” When we find ourselves in the waiting place, our job is simply to turn. We must turn away from how things were in the past as a requisite step in preparing for the future.

As my husband and I wait for the day when we are diaper-free, we must turn from the way we know. We’ll buy some training pants for the little guy. We’ll get a little training potty. We might even pick up a copy of Potty Training for Dummies. (Yes, there’s a real book by that title.) On a more serious note, as Ed and Judy’s son waits for the dreaded day when he no longer works for DHL, he must turn from what he knows and send out resumes and list his house on the market. As Shirley waited for her son to return home from Iraq, as powerless as she felt, she had to turn from life as usual to the one thing she could do: pray. Remembering those days as the worst time in her life, she said to me, “All I had was prayer.”

The waiting place is no place for the faint of heart. Whether you’re hoping for a better day or dreading what is imminent, you must be a survivalist.

Like Colby Coombs. In 1992 Coombs and two other adventurists set out to climb a 17,400 foot mountain in the Alaska Range. As they neared the peak a storm moved in creating an avalanche that knocked Coombs and his friends 800 feet down the side of the face. When Coombs awoke six hours later dangling from his rope, he suffered from “two fractured vertebrae in his neck, a broken shoulder blade, and a fractured ankle.” His two friends were dead.

Coombs was in a terrible predicament. His goal of reaching the summit was thwarted by events out of his control. He now had to turn away from his dream of reaching the top of the mountain with his two friends. He now faced a choice. He could wait there on the side of the mountain and passively hope to be rescued, or he could do something. He chose to do something, with no guarantee what the results might be.

Over the next four days Coombs laboriously picked his way down the mountain and reached base camp. Then he still had a treacherous five-mile glacier crossing with the real possibility of falling into a crevasse with no chance of rescue. But Coombs made it. He now teaches mountaineering courses and tells his students, “if you do get in trouble, anything that gets in the way of success has to be eliminated—emotion, fear, pain. It's the mental things that will impede your survival.”

We must be survivalists when we find ourselves in the waiting place. Even when the only thing we can do is pray. Like Shirley did when her son was fighting in Iraq.

I asked Shirley about the day Wayne came home. She told about how she and Jim went to Camp Lejeune. It was a hot summer day and countless people were there to welcome home beloved sons and daughters and husbands and wives and mommies and daddies. They waited in the hot summer sun as the different companies came in. They waited all day; her son’s company was the last to arrive. Shirley admitted she felt nauseous from all of the emotions of seeing so many sweet reunions juxtaposed against seeing those who showed up knowing their son or their daughter would not be among the returning soldiers that day or any day.

Then Jim and Shirley started seeing the trucks that belonged to Wayne’s company—the same ones they had seen so many times on the news. And then, after waiting all day long, Wayne’s company began marching in. The screams and cheers were deafening. Signs and banners waved in the heat. Shirley wanted so desperately to immediately run to Wayne and embrace him, but the soldiers stood in formation until the commanding officer issued the call to liberty. Shirley ran to her son among the masses. They embraced. Tears flowed. Thanks rang out to God. Her baby boy was home. Her waiting complete.

Today we wait. However our waiting is not one of passivity but of action. “Prepare the way for the Lord” cried John the Baptizer. Open your heart to receive Christ. Make room for his mercy and grace and compassion to flow through you into the dark places. “Prepare the way for the Lord!”