Week 37: Waiting for Jesus

Today's entry into our list of Fifty Things comes from a passage in Matthew chapter 24. And it has a couple of parallel passages in other Gospels and we'll talk about those today as well. Now I'm gonna start off right off the bat by saying that this might be one of the most misunderstood passages in the Gospels. And when the meaning is misunderstood, the application is almost certain to be misapplied. And I think this is an issue that has permeated the church at large and continues to hamper believers today and we may not even realize it. Which is why it's especially important that we look at it in the proper context and get it right so we can change our lives by changing our minds - a throwback to our discussion on repentance a little while back, and in this case - not just change our lives, but make the lives of others better as well.

Alright - without further ado, let's read this passage. Matthew chapter 24 verses 42-44

So you, too, must keep watch! For you don't know what day your Lord is coming. Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected."Matthew 24:42-44

And so within this passage - there is a command. There is an imperative. There's actually a few imperatives, but they're pretty much the same thing so we'll collect them and categorize them as a single entry into our list.

Now I have seen the description of what Jesus is saying in this passage as

#34 - AWAIT JESUS' RETURN

And this is where the misunderstandings and misconceptions being. We see this word - "await" and I think instinctively most of us focus on the WAIT in the A-WAIT. Await. That means - 'wait' right? And we all go - 'well I know how to do that. How do you wait? If only we had examples in our culture of how to wait. Like a 'waiting room' at the doctors office. Right. How does that work? Well, I go, I sign in, I put my name on a list, and then I go and sit in a chair that is way too small and way too uncomfortable, with a bunch of other people who have also signed in and are also waiting. And we kinda nod at each other and smile and then we read a magazine or if we're under the age of 80, we pull out our phones and scroll social media or play a round of Disney Solitaire until the door opens and we're finally called in to see the doctor we've been waiting for. Occasionally we may also look up and contemplate the fish in the fish tank for a few seconds while we're worrying about whatever problems we're having as individuals.

Am I missing anything? Did I get it right? Pretty much accurate?

So AWAIT Jesus' return. And sometimes we as Christians think - "well I got that down. I'm already signed in on the book of life. I'm just waiting to see the Great Physician. So I guess now I'll just be patient and pass the time and be cordial to some folks around me and just mostly be quietly about my own business until the gates of heaven open up and Jesus, or St. Peter or Nurse Joy calls your name." And we applaud ourselves for our patience. More on that later too…

If

#34 AWAIT JESUS RETURN

Just meant 'sit around and wait for a while. Twiddle your thumbs until Jesus comes back - I have a feeling this might be at the top of our list of favorite things on the list of fifty things Jesus asked His followers to do.

How many of you like to wait? Ah ha! And this is where I call "bologna!" I have a theory. Except for a very few of us who have to be going, have to be moving or doing something all the time of we feel like we're gonna explode. Right - its like the movie Speed, if housetop moving less than 60 miles per hour, you're gonna psychologically explode - and God Bless you - God made you and we need those personality types too. But I've got this theory. I think - most of the time when we say we don't like to wait - we mean, "we don't like to be inconvenienced. We don't like to wait when it's not on our terms." I show up to a restaurant. I ask - "How long's the wait?" And if I am hungry, the bigger number you say, the more I am not gonna be happy about waiting. Because I have an agenda! I have plans! I have ideas in my head and this waiting is inconveniencing it!" But if I'm not hungry… I'm just there to meet up with friends or something, and they're like - "it's gonna be a while, but you can go wait in the bar and have a drink and watch the boats in the marina for a while" I don't mind waiting. Because it's not messing with my comfort.

Little confession for you all. I have ADHD. I've mentioned this before. My wife does too. We have this thing as ADHDrs called "Time Blindness." And that is this - the way our brains work and process time, we are not good at estimating how long a task will take. We are not good at estimating how long it will take to get from point A to point B if we are traveling. As I heard this described and I thought this was really accurate - for the person with ADHD there is either "Now. Or Not now." That is time. Something is either "Now." Or "Not Now." And what most often happens with time blindness is you are constantly running behind. You are the person that is always late. Because you need to leave in ten minutes and for some reason your brain tells you, "that's enough time to take a shower, feed the dog, sort the mail, cook a quick snack, do your makeup and swing by and get that thing from Facebook Marketplace before you leave." Because time blindness… she is a cruel mistress. Now - some of us, who have suffered this enough and decided - "never again!" - we go the opposite direction. We've played beat the clock one too many times and now we are beat down. So we OVERESTIMATE the amount of time something's going to take and we build in crazy amounts of buffer time to make sure we're ON-Time. When it is in my control, and it is not always - I have a family and many, many work responsibilities and sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray… but when it is in my control - I am the guy that will be extremely early and happy to be it. If they tell you to get to the airport 2 hours early because of the TSA mess and everything - I'm the guy that wants to be there four hours early. And then I will wait. I will wait and I will enjoy waiting. I will eat breakfast or lunch. I'll take a seat and charge my phone and laptop. I'll watch the planes take off and land and sip a caffeinated beverage. And I am gloriously happy. Because I'm COMFORTABLE. I'm not STRESSED. I'm MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS doing things to pass the time that makes me happy. I like to wait. When there is a horror convention that I'm traveling to…I'm the guy that is there in line ridiculously early - probably one of the first ten in line. I have waited hours upon hours upon hours before. And my wife - who does not get this at all - does not relate to this way of thinking - she'll go - aren't you bored? Why do you just want to wait that long? What did you do for all that time? And I'm like - you don't understand… it… is… GLORIOUS. I went to this one con to meet Robert Englund. This guy (Freddy Krueger) And he's popular. Okay - people were lining up at 1:30am the night before to meet him. Okay - I finished all my work so I could have no responsibilities. So I'm standing in line without a care in the world. And I'm anticipating a good time that's coming up - the con is gonna be great when it opens. And for right now - well, you know, the people in line are holding each other's places, we're getting each other Starbucks. We've been talking for hours about the finer points of our favorite Nightmare movies. We're watching and welcoming other people when they get in line… "Welcome to primetime, welcome to primetime, welcome to primetime…" this may not be doing much for you but there are sheep in other flocks watching online where this is killing right now. And we're just waiting to meet one of our cinematic heroes. It's not like we're working. It's not like we're stressing out. We're just waiting and vibing and 'chillin' like a horror villain."

This isn't meant to be a guilt inducing statement when I say this - so I'll clarify - we all need these times in our lives. Waiting with anticipation and with no responsibility. They're good for us. They're good for the mind, they're good for the soul. But the problem is when we treat our entire Christian lives and what we're doing with our lives and resources - as individuals and as the church - like we're waiting in line at Jesus-Con for hours on end with nothing to do. We're reading scripture on our phone. We're sipping coffee and getting each other Starbucks. We're watching as other people join the fold and we're greeting them - and we're just kinda doing our own thing while WAITING for Jesus return… because we're comfortable… and we like being comfortable… Spiritually… we're checked in, caffeinated and comfortable… but we're not doing anything.

The problem is AWAITING Jesus' return is not the same thing as WAITING for Jesus return. See "waiting" is usually an intransitive verb that we use to mean "passing time." "Staying in place." Like "I'm waiting for the bus." "Awaiting" is transitive and emphasizes anticipation, expectation and PREPARATION. As in "We're awaiting the results." Well what are you doing while you're awaiting the results? We're preparing to take action or we are actively taking measures and putting them in place so when the results get here we are doing the right thing.

Waiting is killing time. Passive. Awaiting is not necessarily passive - especially when it's for something or someone we desire - Awaiting is being active and BEING READY.

Let me give you a very un-Jesus-y example about AWAITING from Return of the Jedi. Where are my Star Wars nerds at? "May the Force Be With You… And also with you." So in Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader shows up to the 2nd Death Star which is still under construction. And things aren't moving fast enough to the Emperor's liking. So Vader tells Commander Jerjerrod (Jer-Juh-Rod) that the Emperor is coming here himself. And the Commander says - "We shall double our efforts." Commander Jer-Juh-Rod and now everybody working on that 2nd Death Star are AWAITING the Emperor by "doubling their efforts" and working toward something so they can BE READY when he arrives. Once again - Jesus, God, not Darth Vader, not the Emperor. But hopefully now we understand that "Awaiting" is not passive. I promise you, this is all working together… you just gotta be patient.

I asked you how many of liked waiting… let me phrase this differently. How many of you like being comfortable? Yeah. How many of you LOVE being comfortable. How many of you love being comfortable and not doing anything that really matters? Listen, can I be honest here - people older than me, you can tell me if I'm onto something here… I have noticed something… the older I get, the more I just want to be comfortable and the less I want to do. Something has happened that I never would've anticipated in my 20's and 30's - maybe some of you old souls in young bodies out there relate to this too - but now… I love it when people cancel plans. Cancelled plans feel amazing! It's almost like a drug. That moment when you realize - KI had something to do that was going to require effort - but now, I don't even have to go out. I can just stay at home in my sweatpants, order a pizza and binge Netflix true crime dramas.

If cancelling plans and doing nothing feels amazing can I get an Amen?

Yeah - the problem is when that philosophy… preference… tendency… creeps into our spiritual lifestyle. And look - it creeps in quietly. When you're younger and you have energy or maybe it's not even an age thing, maybe it's just a 'fired up' thing - when you're new to Jesus and you're soaking it all in and you're on fire for Jesus - maybe you want to do a thousand and one things for Him to reach people, to love people… but after awhile… that desire or preference for spiritual comfort… and physical comfort… it can start to creep in… and settle in. And before you know it we become insulated… insular… inward focused… instead of engaged, compassionate, outward-facing, outreaching… instead of being the hands and feet of Jesus in our community we become the warm butts in the same seats we sit in every week so much so that when we show up on Sunday we know OUR seats - the seats we like to sit in because they bear the impressions of our cheeks from so many consecutive Sundays. We start to like things the way we like them. Because new means effort. Different means processing. We even like the same songs on repeat - in church or on our Spotify lists because we know them. They are familiar to us. We know all the words. We can sing along with no problems. You ever meet that one guy who hasn't listened to anything new on the radio since 1968 because "there's no new good music? Nothing can match his. Favorites that they grew up with?" That's objectively, obviously not true… but you don't think we do that in the church world?

You know why we like to hear that plans are cancelled and we be in our sweatpants eating Chunky Monkey straight from the carton? Because being in our sweatpants on the couch among familiar surroundings and our treats of choice is COMFORTABLE. And we PREFER to be COMFORTABLE. And not only do we prefer to be comfortable, but eventually, our preferences, our individuals likes and dislikes and preferred surroundings become comfortable. Our PREFERENCES become COMFORTING.

Which is fine every once in a while in the physical world that we live in. But if that is our spiritual lifestyle or the spiritual strategy of the church we are in trouble. Because that is no way to

#34- AWAIT JESUS' RETURN

Jesus told His followers,

You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.Matthew 24:44

Well, probably much to some of our chagrins,

COMFORT IS THE ENEMY OF READINESS

It's safe to say that we could rephrase

#34 - AWAIT JESUS' RETURN

On our list of Fifty Things to

#34 - BE READY

But we gotta figure out what that means. And this is where some of us miss the mark with our understanding of scripture, and I can't say I blame you if you do because it's been mis-taught by a number of people for a long time - for generations. And I will tell you that because it has, generations of Christ Followers awaiting Jesus' return have spent a lot of time being about the wrong things and being focused on the wrong things in their spiritual walk thinking they were "BEING READY."

So some folks read -

So you, too, must keep watch! For you don't know what day your Lord is coming. Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.Matthew 24:42-44

And they see that "keep watch!" Part.

And so some people would say nah nah, #34 on the list of Fifty Things shouldn't be

#34 - AWAIT JESUS RETURN

It shouldn't be

#34 - BE READY

It should be

#34 - KEEP WATCH

It's right there at the beginning of the key verse!

"Keep Watch!" That triggers that anxiety for some of us. That triggers that 'watchman on the wall' soldier mentality for some of us for a variety of reasons. Keep watch! And we go - "Right. I'm gonna be a good sentry, and if I'm gonna be a good sentry and protect the perimeter and batten down the hatches and be ready, then I need to know what I'm keeping watch for!

And we'll talk about what we should be keeping watch for and what keep watch really means, by doing one of the most in-depth breakdowns of a passage of scripture that we've ever done- culturally, historically, linguistically, theologically - you're gonna be drinking from a firehouse… NEXT WEEK

Thank you for letting me share with you today.I hope you had fun and I hope this message allowed us to reflect more honestly about our spiritual lives when it comes to comfort and readiness. Until next time, may you take comfort that our Savior is coming again one day. And may we take action to Be ready for Him as we eagerly await His return.