What Are We Waiting For?
The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
25 December 2005
Christmas Day – Proper III
Several weeks ago, I was driving my son Peter to school when I heard Bruce Springstein on the radio singing “Santa Claus is coming to town.” (I had stopped for coffee and, when I returned to the car, the radio had mysteriously changed from “Morning Edition” on 90.1 to “rock without rules” on 92.9.)
As I listened to “the Boss” laugh his way through the familiar Christmas carol, I was struck by what the song really seemed to be saying.
To show you what I am talking about, I am going to ask you to sing the carol with me. The words are printed on a sheet that you should have received with your service leaflet, and the choir is going to help us along.
But, I want you to make one change. I want you to substitute “Jesus Christ” for “Santa Claus” when it appears. So, the refrain will be “Jesus Christ is coming to town.”
OK, are you ready?
You better watch out,
You better not cry,
Better not pout,
I’m telling you why:
Jesus Christ is coming to town.
He’s making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out
Who’s naughty and nice.
Jesus Christ is coming to town.
He sees you when you’re sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows if you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!
Oh, you better watch out!
You better not cry.
Better not pout,
I’m telling you why:
Jesus Christ is coming to town.
Jesus Christ is coming to town!
Does this make you just a little anxious?
The first things that come to my mind, of course, are those wonderful images of jolly old St. Nic in his sleigh, and the adorable baby Jesus in a manger. But, there is something lurking behind those images. It feels a little sinister.
It makes me feel the same way that I feel when I drive by those billboards along the highway. The ones that say “Don’t make me come down there again!” or “Which part of ‘thou shalt not’ don’t you understand?”
The message seems to be that God is all-powerful, all knowing … and not particularly happy. People have done those things that they were not to have done and left undone those things that they were to have done. God is coming to clean up this mess and, when he gets here, we are all going to get just what we deserve.
If you doubt God’s power, look at the miracle of Jesus’ birth, and if you doubt what a mess we have made of the world, look at the horror of his death.
Our only chance is “to be good for goodness sake!”
The problem with this message is that it leaves us separated from God.
That’s why I get anxious when I hear carols like “Santa Claus is coming to town.” I’m smart enough to know that I can’t be “good for goodness sake” very long and, trust me, the last thing I want in life is what I truly deserve.
In other words, I’m in real trouble if I have to rely on being good to overcome the separation from God that I often experience.
I think most of us realize that we will never be good enough in any absolute sense to earn God’s approval. So, the temptation is to do the next best thing.
The temptation is to try to get on the right side of God by making sure that we are at least better than somebody else on a relative basis. We can, I think, sense ourselves giving in to this temptation when we become overly concerned with tightening up the rules that tell people how to behave, and then pointing our fingers at the people who break those rules.
We know that we have gone too far when the rules themselves start to feel sacred. They start to look like our only hope. They start to look like the only things standing between us and permanent separation from God.
Is this what we have been waiting for? Is this what all that talk of watchfulness during advent was preparing us for?
It will not surprise you that I think the story of Jesus promises us more than this.
Listen again to the prologue to the Fourth Gospel.
In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Jn. 1:1)
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14)
Does this feel a little better – like the beginnings of joy or maybe even peace?
The poetry of this hymn uses the familiar language of the creation story to evoke images of two orders: the cosmic reality of the eternal God; and the physical reality of our temporal world. We immediately get a sense of the separation between the “up there,” and the “down here.”
Then, something happens. There is movement. The references to God and the Word become references to father and son. By following the movement, we can see the connection between the orders. We can see the bridge that spans the separation between the “up there” and the “down here.”
And this, I think, is the whole point!
God comes to us. Jesus reveals God to us in a way that we can see and hear and, in doing so, changes our relationship with God. Jesus enables us to experience God in ways that would otherwise be unavailable to us.
God, if you will, came over to our side of the line when Jesus was born. He made himself available to us in a new way. Jesus doesn’t come bearing gifts. Jesus is the gift.
And God does this not to condemn us, but to save us.
The separation from God that we sometimes feel is not a result of our having failed to earn God’s approval. God is not a taker of life. God is a giver of life and, perhaps more importantly for us, God has the power to perfect life.
The separation from God that we sometimes feel is simply a failure to take what God has handed to us.
Let me give you another image of God – one more hopeful than the image of “Santa Claus is coming to town,” and more consistent with the prologue of the Fourth Gospel.
Ignay Jan Paderewski was a Polish pianist, philanthropist and statesman widely recognized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is a wonderful story – probably apocryphal – about Paderewski and a little boy.
According to the story, the boy wandered away from his mother just before one of Paderewski’s concerts. As the great performer prepared to make his entrance, the curtains opened to reveal the boy, sitting at the grand piano in the middle of the stage. The boy, presumably no stranger to concert protocol, responded by beginning to pick out a simple tune. Some versions of the story say the tune was “Chopsticks” and others say that it was “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” It doesn’t really matter.
As the tension in the crowd grew (and, presumably, before the horrified mother fainted) Paderewski moved quickly to the boy and whispered in his ear “Don’t quit. Keep playing.” Paderewski then bent down. Reaching around with his left hand, he began filling in a base part. And, reaching around with his right hand, he added a running obbligato.
The stunning performance was all the crowd could remember about the evening.
Now this is the image of a God worth waiting for!
We have been waiting for a creator who uses his imagination not to condemn, but to save.
We have been waiting for a redeemer who wields his power not to threaten separation, but to promise connectedness.
We have been waiting for a sustainer who reveals his presence not to provoke fear, but to inspire creativity.
And, happily, this is the God promised by the Gospel.
So, what are we waiting for?
The good news is that God is waiting for us.
Merry Christmas!
Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org