[On this day, the third Sunday of Advent, I would like to speak about the waiting which is particularly expressed in this Word: "In these lay a great multitude of the sick, the blind, the lame, the ascetic, waiting for the moving of the waters." (Jn 5,3) These people did not have an Advent expectation, but it is precisely how a non-Advent expectation becomes an Advent expectation that we should be talking about! There were a bunch of miserable, wretched people here together: sick, blind, lame, ascetic, a great multitude of wretched people, burdened with all the miseries, pains and insolubility of human life. And they waited for the solution, for the moving of the waters, and from that the healing. And just as they sat there in the five porches of the pool of Bethesda, so today men sit in the five corners of the earth, waiting for something, a great expectation fills the souls of men: some for this, some for that, but all are waiting for something that they consider the solution to the problem of their lives. It could almost be said that the whole of humanity in its universality, but also the individual man in his personal circumstances, is living in a great, tense expectation.There is good in this expectation! He who has hope can wait. Because to wait means to know that something is missing, something is incomplete, something is not right as it is, but I have not given up hope that everything will be resolved one day! It is a precious gift from God when someone can wait like that! The tragedy of a suicide is that he cannot wait. He has run out of patience, he has lost all hope and feels that there is nothing to wait for! That's how the wife of the biblical Job felt when she gave this advice to her very sick husband: "Curse God and die" (Job 2:9): God has taken away your children, your wealth, your health, he has robbed you of everything, so what more can you expect from him, what more do you expect from life? Suicide, there is no other solution for you but death! That is always Satan's advice! It is in Satan's interest that man should not wait for God to solve his problem! And how good it is that old Job did not follow this advice, but was able to wait, for lo - he did not wait in vain! Even those wretches there at the pool of Bethesda were living in the expectation. They waited for the water to move! That is why they thought it was worth living at all, because the water might move and then the big problem would be solved! It was the desperation of waiting that saved them from waiting. That is why we said that it is a precious gift of God when one can wait! So waiting itself is a good thing.
But there are also dangers and temptations of waiting! One of the temptations is that one imagines a solution to an unresolved situation, and holds on to it, waiting with all one's expectation for that solution, and remaining insensitive to all other possible solutions! In this story, these patients were waiting for the water to move. They could not imagine any other way of healing. Their expectation was so fixed on the water that they did not even notice Jesus walking among them. Jesus, the Prince of Life, was walking among the sick, but who would have cared for Him? It was not Him who was important, but the moving of the water! They imagined an angel descending on the lake, stirring up the water, and then a miracle happens to the first one to enter! That's what they were waiting for! I would say that's what they were waiting for! You could almost say that they were blinded by their own expectation to see the real solution, that is, to expect the solution not from the water but from Jesus Christ!
And are we not the same?! We imagine some solution and we concentrate all our hopes there, so much so that we cannot look for any other solution! I will put the solution in front of me and I will pray to Him! For most people who have some kind of expectation: that is their mistake! Young men, for example, tend to look to marriage for a solution to their sexual problems. They expect that all the confusion and struggles they have inside them will be smoothed out and resolved in marriage. And the expectation will be fulfilled, but the solution will not come. Because the solution was not marriage, it was Christ! But who would have thought of him in that great state of expectation?
Or, for example, I know of a couple where the husband suffered a lot because of his wife's incomprehensible behaviour, unworthy of a Christian woman. Over the years, the man had become an introverted, sullen, unpeaceful man, and he saw it all as being caused by his wife's unconverted state. In his silent solitude, he prayed for his wife's conversion, hoping that she would one day change her mind and regain her peace of mind! He lived in that hope! Well: the great change in his wife's life came in the summer, and yet he remained as peaceful and sullen as ever. So the solution for him was not to change his wife, but Jesus Christ! But all the expectations of his heart were so attached to a solution he had imagined that he did not even realise that it was not the right solution for him. Or, for example, a man lying on a sickbed can only imagine the solution to his life's problem in one way - the way of healing - so much so that he cannot see any other solution, even though the solution may not be to be healed, but perhaps to meet the Lord there, in the abyss of misery! Perhaps that is why he had to go into the abyss, so that the Lord could give him a great general solution. For the abyss, the misery of human existence, is always an open door through which the mercy of God can enter our lives. And we imagine that the only way to solve our problem is to close the gate. Do not try to close such an open gate until the Lord Jesus has come through it to you with His solution! The Advent expectation begins when a waiting soul gives up all individual ideas and turns fully to the Lord Jesus, like this Bethesda patient when Jesus stopped before him!
That is, the expectation of our heart becomes an Advent expectation when we are not expecting something, but Someone! Is it not so that we always wait for something from Jesus and not for Him?! Like this patient in Bethesda, when Jesus was standing face to face with him, he spoke to him, and even then he just kept on saying his own idea: "If I had a man to take me into the water when I am upset, but I have not! He hoped that Jesus would be the good-hearted man he had been waiting for, the one who would finally fulfil the long-cherished wish he had so often fantasized about. So he is still holding on to the solution of his own imagination, with the change that he now expects Jesus to make it come true. The religious man often falls into this mistake of imagining something, of colouring it out for himself - how good it would be this way or that, how everything would be solved at once if this or that happened - and asking the Lord to carry out the plans thus worked out, almost expecting Him to do what he has thus imagined for himself. After all, the Lord can do it, He has the power to solve our problems the way I want, the way I have imagined them, so why not ask Him? Again, the mistake is that the person of Jesus means something to me only insofar as I get something I want, something I desire, not for Jesus himself, but for what he brings, what he gives!
This is a great temptation for every Christian man! He knows that Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, so he can look to Him for the solution to everything in his life: and it is this solution he wants, not Jesus! Here, for example, is Christmas in a good week. We all look forward to this precious holiday, don't we? But let's take stock of this expectation in our hearts: what are we actually looking forward to for Christmas? Are we not like the child who is waiting for presents and the Christmas tree? So we are waiting for something and not for Someone! Family togetherness, a festive atmosphere by candlelight, a touching Christmas sermon, a Christmas tree celebration with a little religious sentiment! If any of this is missing, most people say: it's not really Christmas! Can you feel the emphasis slipping imperceptibly from the essential to the unessential?! From Somebody to Something?! All the glittery something's make us miss the one Someone for Whom Christmas is for!
And is not God doing well when He takes away some of the something, to bring the Somebody more into focus? In fact, that's the trouble with all our Christianity, that it's something and not Someone! It is something like going to church, or giving, or speaking piously, a lot of biblical thoughts, prayerful moods, memories of old experiences. Yes: it is often the case, even for those who have really met the Lord, in person, in reality, that they live only from the memory of that one encounter! Is your Christianity something like that?! But it is not the real thing! The content of true Christianity is Someone: the Lord Jesus Christ, who was received into my heart, born in me and lives in me! An earnest believer once said, "He who is a Christian by the Holy Spirit always has something, such as peace, or joy, or some other gift of grace. Have you, brother, Christ, the living Christ, or something of Him?
All our expectations become Advent expectations when we do not expect something, but Someone. Not ask God for something, not ask God for a solution, but ask God for Someone: ask God for the Lord Jesus Himself, God's most precious gift. Ask God for God Himself! If there is no peace in your heart, don't ask for peace, ask for Jesus! If there is no love in you, if you feel that you are not able to love someone, do not ask God to enable you, so again, do not ask for something, but for Someone: Jesus Christ! Himself! If you are sick, do not ask for healing; if you are a prisoner, do not beg for release; if you are unhappy, do not beg for happiness; if you are afraid, do not beg for courage; if you are tired, do not ask for new strength - but ask for Jesus Christ! That is the true Advent expectation expressed in this hymn. Let us wait, then, not for the moving of the waters, but for Him, the fountain of life, the fullness of life:
My Saviour, you cannot deny me one request:
That I may carry you deep in my heart, I hope,
And I will be thy cradle and thy shelter; Come, then, fill me.
With thee: with great joy!
Canto 329, verse 5
Amen
Date: 16 December 1951.
Lesson
Jn 5,1-16