“Waiting for Jesus to be Revealed” 1 Cor. 1.3-9 Advent 1, Nov. ’14…

1.      Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word this First Sunday in Advent, the start of a New Church Year is taken from 1 Cor. 1:3-9 and it’s entitled, “Waiting for Jesus to be Revealed.”  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.      If there's one thing people hate to do, it's wait.  We don't like to wait for anything.  It doesn't even matter if the thing we're waiting for is "good" or "bad."  How many of you have ever had some sort of unpleasant experience that you know is slated for the future (i.e. a medical procedure or a meeting) and you say, "I wish I could just do it right now and get it over with!  This waiting is killing me!"?  Don't even get me started on the lack of patience we have when it comes to waiting for something "good."  How long have the stores been pushing their "Christmas cheer" on us now?  At least since Halloween time!  It's getting to be so bad, that I wouldn't be surprised at all if we began hearing announcements such as, "only 364 more shopping days until Christmas!" The sad thing is that most people would bite.  They'd buy into this hype hook, line, and sinker.  Nobody likes to wait.  I guess it's just part of human nature.

3.      In our text this morning, St. Paul assures us that we are ready for Christ’s coming and that can enable us to do the thing we’re not so great at: wait.  St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:3-9, “3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”  Here St. Paul tells us that we the Advent people of God are called to be ready and waiting for our Lord Jesus to be revealed.  And, we are confident because we are ready in Christ.

4.      But, while we’re waiting for Jesus’ return in glory to take us to our heavenly home we may wonder, are we prepared for it?  How often have you heard someone say this?  “We weren’t prepared, because we didn’t know it was going to happen.” Examples abound in recent and not-so-recent history:  The German invasion of Poland in September 1939.  The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on this date, Dec. 7, 1941, 73 years ago.  The Islamic terrorist plot carried out on Sept. 11, 2001, with assaults on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.  The earthquake and subsequent fires that almost destroyed San Francisco in April 1906.  The tsunami that roared across the Indian Ocean in late December 2004.  The earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the tornadoes across the South and Midwest this past spring.  Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and Biloxi and the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

5.      Waiting is one thing when we’re prepared. Waiting is quite another when we’re unprepared. And how can we possibly be prepared when we don’t know what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen?

6.      Well, here’s Advent good news: we are not “lacking in any spiritual gift, as [we] wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ,” for he will sustain us to the end (1 Cor 1:7–8a). We don’t know what and when about many things, but we do know that someday Christ is returning in judgment and salvation, that everyone who trusts in Christ Jesus is prepared, and that in the meantime God has equipped us with everything we need for all those uncertainties.

7.      We are ready because of all that God has done for us (vv 4–7).  The Corinthians lacked nothing.  They were enriched in every way with all speech and knowledge.  But the apostle says, “Look beyond the present day and your present gifts to the Last Day and the Lord’s greater gifts.”

 

8.      We also lack nothing.  Our challenge is this: we want to focus on Christmas Day and its gifts (all the presents in stockings and under the tree and, yes, especially the Gift in the manger).  Much better, we have our Lord’s fullest gifts: salvation completed, Christ revealed, and eternity experienced.

9.      Yet we are waiting.  We are waiting for “the day” (v 7).  Yes, we’re waiting for the day—count ’em down: 25 1/2  days until Christmas (no pressure now to get your Christmas shopping done, have you gone out this weekend for Black Friday sales yet)!  We can hardly wait for the day to celebrate the revealing of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, born in the manger in Bethlehem.

10.  But we are actually waiting for two days (vv 7b– 8).  It isn’t really Christmas Day about which Paul is writing. Even for him and for the Corinthians, that had already happened.  They/you/we wait for the Christmas festival, that annual celebration, yes, but we also wait for the Great(er) Day. Just as the incarnation revealed our Lord and his mission, just as the crucifixion revealed our Lord and his mission, so the Great Day will reveal him as the glorious Judge and King.  So we wait as resident aliens, as strangers in a strange land that is not our ultimate home.

11.  And Advent also calls us to wait for a third day, the day of our physical death, the day on which our souls are taken into our Lord’s presence.  Herveius Burgidolensis (twelfth century): “The day of death is for each person the day of the Lord’s coming” (quoted in Latin by A. Robertson and A. Plummer, The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, p 7; quoted by Lockwood, 36).

12.  And still, for each of these days we are ready (vv 8–9).  Because though we are guilty, we are guiltless. “Jesus has cleansed His church by removing the sins of believers through His own blood on the cross. This cleansing has been applied to Christians through Holy Baptism (Eph 5:26). When Jesus returns the church will be blameless, because God who is faithful keeps it [her!] in the cleansing flow of His grace” (Milton Rudnick, Erwin Kolb, 1 Corinthians, LifeLight Leader’s Guide [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995], 11).  Because though we are faithless, God is faithful (2 Tim 2:13a).  Because though we are loveless loners and runaway rebels, we are given fellowship with his Son.

13.  The Church waits . . . made ready by the testimony of and about Christ. The Church waits . . . ready because we are gifted in every necessary way. The Church waits . . . trusting that Christ sustains his Bride ready to the end. The Church waits . . . ready because she is guiltless (unaccusable!) through the imputed righteousness of Christ. The Church waits . . . rejoicing that we are ready because God is faithful. The Church waits . . . eager and ready to celebrate the full fellowship of and with Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.