"When?"

“When?”

Rev. Tony Romaine 
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As we journey through the Advent season this year, I want to take us on an exploration of the great questions which we are all taught from an early age, Who, What, Why, When, Where, and perhaps even How.  Each week we will tackle another one of these basic questions in response to our Advent season.  For today, we are going to discuss when…So let us begin!

I remember my Grandpa telling me a story comparing how things are done in Minnesota and how things are done in California.  He told me, “Back in MN if you took your car into the repair shop and asked for when they would have it back to you, if they told you ‘Next Wednesday,’ it meant you could go in the next Wednesday and pick it up.  But here in CA, when I take the car into the repair shop and they tell me ‘Next Wednesday,’ that could indeed be next Wednesday, or it could be Thursday, or Friday, or the following Wednesday.”  I think of this story often when I think about how different time is to different people in different places.

When?

          The million-dollar question of “when” is one that is near and dear to my heart, for it was a question that led me down my path of calling in ministry and my complete trust in God.  And trust is the concept which most aligns with our questions of when, for we do not know the time and date of when it will happen, but we must trust in that it will.
But what is this “when” we refer to?  Well, for the ancient Israelites, the “when’s” they were wondering were many, just like ours.  When will we be saved from this Egyptian slavery?  When will we be saved from this wandering in the wilderness?  When will we be saved from the Assyrians and the Babylonians?  When will the promised Savior come?  Often times, our ancestors were so focused on asking questions and doubting their current situation, that they failed to heed the warnings of the prophets or listen and follow the Word of God.  Instead of remaining present in their lives and working, worshipping, and being the love of God to one another, they often would ignore their call to love God and love one another and instead pine after their “when’s.” 

Moreover, when times were bad, they would call on God to save them and blame God if it did not happen.  And when times were good, they thought that they themselves could prolong and procure those good times and so failed in their thankfulness to God.  Thus, when the ultimate Savior did come, they were expecting the “when” they thought was right and what was going to happen and were blind to the actual coming of the Lord into their lives.

I don’t know about you, but hearing this very brief generalization of the Old and New Testaments up to the time of Jesus’ death and resurrection makes me ponder about my own life.  It seems to me like there might be a few lessons we need to learn about asking the question of “when.” 

First lesson of when:

• We do not know!  How come that is so difficult for us to say those words?  How come it is so difficult for us to be a people who does not know when our Savior will come?  Especially when we hear that Jesus does not even know when! 

 

• And thus, we must Trust  

 
Second Lesson of When:

• It might not happen, look like, or be anything we expect!

 

• When the Psalmists and Prophets and Preachers of old were proclaiming that God would one day come again and save the people from all their demise and despair, when the talk of a Savior came about, when God promised that one day all would be saved once more…who could have ever imagined that God would come in the form of an infant, born to a regular couple, in nowheresville Israel?

 

• And yet, there were prophecies of a child leading the way, of angels coming to proclaim a reign of peace, and God bursting forth in the most unexpected ways.  There are countless stories of God working miracles and doing things throughout time that baffle our human understanding.  So what is so difficult to imagine that our “when” would be any different?

 
Third lesson of when:

• We must listen

 

• Be ready, keep alert, stay awake

 

• This seems like it would be straight-forward, but we do a very good job as society of falling back into patterns of sleepiness.  We have easy days and we think we are the ones who made them happen.  We have good times and we think they will last forever because we can make it so.  We have all we could ever need and we forget that there are others in our world who do not have anything…and we fall asleep to God’s call in our lives.  And unfortunately the “when” it takes to wake us up from this kind of sleep is historically and traditionally loud, violent, and not all what we would want.

 
See, this Advent, as in the past, we are being called to trust in the when which we do not know.  We are being called to live into a light that we must trust will burst forth into our lives once again at a time yet to be determined.  We are being told to be ready, for we do not know the hour or the day, but we must be prepared.  But it seems just like our ancestors of old, our “when’s” are piling up again.  For instance:

• When will we be able to come back into the church and worship like we used to? 
• When will we be able to be healed from this Covid-19 pandemic? 
• When will our lives return to normal? 
• When will Jesus come again to heal our broken world? 
• When will God reveal to me how and where I am being called?
• When will I find my purpose? 
• When will I get some rest? 
• When will Tony stop with this sermon?

 
When?

But if I can be so bold, let me offer what I feel might be God’s response to some of these questions of when.  Because I truly feel and believe that if we were all to reflect on these, we know the answers in our hearts.  So here we go: 

• When will we be able to come back into the church and worship like we used to?  When you have figured out that church is much more than a building and worship is not something reserved for only Sundays.

 

• When will we be able to be healed from this Covid-19 pandemic?  When you finally listen to the wisdom I gave through scientists, doctors, medical professionals, and love one another enough to protect one another; regardless of personal yearnings or traditions or political beliefs

 

• When will our lives return to normal?  Your lives never were the “normal” you imagined.  Your “normal” was not working.  Your “normal” was broken and your lives can be so much better.  When you realize and prepare for the future, the future I imagine for you, your life will be better than normal, it will be exceptional.

 

• When will God reveal to me how and where I am being called?  When you ask honestly and truly listen.

 

• When will I find my purpose?  When you stop to see how much of an impact you have on my world and how much your life is purposefully changing the lives of those around you.

 

• When will I get some rest?  When you trust completely in me and abandon yourself completely to my Love. 

 

• When will Tony stop with this sermon?  Soon, we all hope!

 
 
          And while we can only speculate the answers to all these “when’s,”  if we are honest with ourselves, we do know one thing that we often forget; the waiting, the hoping, the time of anticipation is a moment for us to embrace one another in God’s love and share our love with the world. 

Okay, if you were following along, you realize there is one of our “when” questions I did not answer:  When will Jesus come again to heal our broken world?  This one I do not presume to even postulate about, as we can never be sure.  But this is what Advent is all about, and why we begin our Advent season with the Sunday of Hope; we must trust and believe in our God who does not abandon us, who does not ever leave us, who longs for us to put everything we have and give everything we have to God, and we must hope in a future we cannot even imagine nor have any idea of when it will come.  Advent is all about trusting and believing in that our God of Love will provide, our God of Love is real, and Our God of Love will indeed come again.

And in this manner, I feel like God is working on repairing something; perhaps us.  And when in hope we ask for a date of completion, in the most California way possible we do not really know our “when.”  So, I guess it’s best we just prepare ourselves for whenever Wednesday comes and live into God’s Eternal Hope, Amen!