I learned a lesson last week: preaching on waiting can be just as dangerous as praying for patience. I told the congregation that we need to learn to see waiting not as wasted time but rather as a productive part of God’s work in our lives, and I guess he decided to put me to the test on the subject—I think I got to know every single one of the slowest drivers in this county on a first-license-plate basis. I spent the week waiting on the folks who don’t turn right on reds, and the ones who don’t go when the light turns green; I found myself behind one driver after another who was afraid to get within five miles an hour of the speed limit, except when God decided I needed a little variety and put me behind a guy going ten under. It was rather frustrating—at least until I realized God had made me my own sermon illustration, and then I was able to laugh at it.For all the inherent risks, though, I decided to keep talking about this, because God does make us wait, and it’s important for us to understand why; it’s important that we see this as part of God’s work, and resist being tempted into finding something else to do. In our society in which the most-pressed button in the elevator is the “door close” button because we can’t wait ten seconds for it to close by itself, we need to understand who and what we’re waiting for, and that the waiting is necessary to prepare us for his coming. It’s necessary because without the work God does in us while we wait, we won’t be able to endure it when he comes.We have a tendency to miss that, because the images we have of Christmas are such beautiful and non-threatening ones—“mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild,” with the animals watching cutely nearby. In our imaginations, even the shepherds are sanitized. Christmas is a joyous celebration, so our natural instinct is to make it safe and happy and fun, with no sharp edges anywhere in sight. The thing is, though, the coming of Jesus wasn’t like that, and his second coming won’t be either. One of the things I most appreciate about Narnia is the way in which C. S. Lewis captures this—when Aslan appears, it’s always a wonderful thing, but it’s never easy or merely pleasant, even for those who love him best; as Mr. Beaver says of him, he’s good, but he isn’t safe.Indeed, he isn’t safe precisely because he’s good; this is why, as is so often said of him, he isn’t a tame lion. True goodness, true joy, true holiness, true love—anything which is an aspect of the character of God—these are all wonderful things, but also very perilous, because they’re powerful and deeply real; the petty parts of us, our shameful little desires and our selfish whims, cannot endure their presence. There’s a real pain that comes with any sort of intense encounter with God, or with someone who is very close to God, as those parts of ourselves are burned away or driven into hiding—or roused to fight back. This is what the judgment and wrath of God really mean: not that he picks people out and punishes them because he doesn’t like them, but simply that to our sinful natures, the goodness and holiness and love and joy and peace of God, all of his character, are intolerably painful; we can either choose to draw close to him, and allow his presence to purge us of our sin, or we can cling to our sin, and be purged of his presence. God loves us as we are, but he cannot leave us as we are if he is to bring us to himself—we would never survive the experience.(Excerpted, edited, from “Who Can Stand?”)
