A waiting room in Ghana
delivered on 20 December 2009
by Rev. Dr John Evans
(The following comments were made after the congregation’s Christmas pageant which featured the waiting of kings and prophets for the coming of the Messiah.)
Our pageant has highlighted the frustration of waiting, waiting – being expectant and waiting even more, for a new, a different world.
We have also seen the joy of fulfillment in the final coming of the long anticipated one; the breaking of God’s reign into our lives: the birth of Jesus. Not quite as we might have expected it; but joyous all the same.
Waiting and fulfillment.
The pageant has been fun – we have heard it all before; we think we can relate to the feelings and emotion involved; after all, we hear it each Advent and Christmas. And often we promptly forget.
I hope however, the poignancy of the last two weeks, or has it been two years or two generations, around the Copenhagen Conference might just put us into touch with both the seriousness of the world’s situation; and indeed the amazing nature of Christmas.
Climate Summit in Copenhagen, December 2009
In my lifetime, I have never seen or witnessed such an event as Copenhagen. In human history there probably has never been such a gathering – where nations and their leaders, in such numbers, have endeavoured to grapple with an issue which genuinely transcends national boundaries and affects you whether you are rich or poor; black or white, north or south. Our climate and our very existence on this small planet and how we are to relate with each other.
Anticipation and hope. Waiting.
With Copenhagen there was eager waiting for action. Waiting. Were we there yet? Surely the wait will be worth it. This time it was not the national aspirations as with Israel (and the story of King David and the prophets). This was for us all. . . for our children and grandchildren. Nightly we have watched the news. Was it encouraging? Would there be an agreement? Nothing … nothing yet, we heard again and again.
Waiting.
And fulfillment?
Obama, Hu Jintao and the other great powers shun multilateralism, offering the rest of us a take-it-or-leave-it deal (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Well, what have we got? I can’t call him the messiah, or even John the Baptist, but his office used to be indisputably the most powerful in the world, and even Barack Obama could only cobble together a cross section of nations to make a declaration of some future intention, which somehow becomes an accord. It is better than nothing I guess.
One needs hope, to wait – to wait, expectantly. Does hope come from not doing things as badly as we used to do them? Does hope come from just following what others might do, so that you may not jeopardise one’s own position? “Don’t want to offer too much when those pesky Indians or Brazilians might not pull their weight – at least as we see it.” Does hope come from having a good process, and no action?
Waiting and fulfillment.
The waiting of King David, or the prophets, of Zechariah, even of Mary during her pregnancy – culminated in none of those things – but in God acting. God acting. There is the hope – beyond our human failing, our human pride and greed – even in the face of crisis and missed opportunity.
At Christmas our waiting is fulfilled: do we really comprehend the gift we have been given, and live in the way of Christ?
