Dear Advent People!
This morning on the First Sunday of Advent, I had a most unusual experience. I was sitting in a car for worship in the parking lot with Anne and Treiva. It wasn't the same. I was out in the elements for over a year and half with the ushers each Sunday but I was not sitting in a car. Many of you came Sunday after Sunday to sit in your car for worship. Your desire to worship the Lord overcame what we all had known. And you waited for that day of return to sanctuary worship. Some still worship in the parking lot for a variety of reasons and today I was out there with you. I was "rejoicing that this is the day the Lord has made, as we should be rejoicing in it."
Waiting, we all wait. Today I am waiting to get back to what I did before successful back surgery. In this period of waiting, I am so very grateful for Anne and her continuous ministry to me. We wait together. I am so very thankful for those who shared their gifts with me by responding to the call of health and healing as their vocation. They continue to wait with me. For those of this congregation who have expressed their support for me as I have been less physically able than I was when you last saw me, I am very thankful. You have waited for and with me. I give thanks for the friends we made at Mayo Clinic and at St. Mary's Hospital as we waited with each other. I give thanks to God who is Emmanuel, God with us, always with us.
We all have stories of waiting. Some are at the core of our lives. There is a husband who has waited for weeks at the bed of his wife who is hospitalized. There is the couple who waited so very long for the birth of a child, a couple who mourns the death of the child of 14 months. There is the one who waits for the medical test results which may be an ominous message for the future.
Others are elated by the result of medical tests. A couple celebrates 50 year of marriage and the good health they have both experienced. Another couple celebrates the birth of their first child, healthy as can be.
God waits with us in all circumstances; some joyous, some sorrowful, and everything in between.
This is our Lord, whose Advent or “coming” we celebrate this season. We wait for him to come into the world as Christ child, and we wait for his coming again. We who are baptized into his life and death are called to wait with those who are neighbors, near and far away, by being present with and for them. It is truly a gift to have someone wait with you. It is a gift to wait with someone. In a few weeks we will celebrate the gift of the one who came into the world to wait with us, God with us. Until then, pause, look with eyes wide open, and exercise the ministry of waiting. May you be a blessing to others in need of your ministry.
In Christ,
Pastor Frank Kauzlarich