We wait for a variety of different people and organizations to provide a positive influence and a constructive direction for our lives:
• We invest phenomenal resources of time, energy and money into youth athletics, waiting for the adult mentoring and team camaraderie to shape our children. And then the arrest last week of a girl’s high school hockey coach for a sexual relationship with a 16 year-old team member leaves us wanting even of physical safety.
• We look to elected leaders to place concern for their constituencies ahead of partisan loyalties, waiting for issues of energy and health care and education and environment to be addressed. And then we watch the congressional session come to a close in incapacitating impasse.
• We continually commit personal and public resources to help support professional sports teams, waiting for this industry to produce role models for health and wholeness. And then we read reports of widespread player dependence on performance enhancing drugs.
• We attend to the hype of presidential primary campaigning, waiting for insightful, compassionate, collaborative candidates to emerge from all parties. And then we watch these prospective world leaders turn on each other in the primaries, fighting for position even within their own camps.
• We come to churches especially at this time of year, waiting to hear and see evidence of peace and justice and joy; the very words printed on your bulletin cover this morning. And then we hear and see gunshots and the fallen bodies of four victims and a shooter in the halls of a Colorado missionary center and church.
We wait for a variety of different people and organizations to provide a positive influence and a constructive direction for our lives, and become disappointed and cynical.

Some things haven’t changed a lot in a couple thousand years. In our gospel reading from Matthew, the Hebrew people were also disappointed and cynical in their wait for a Messiah, for one who truly had the capacity to lead them beyond the seemingly endless Old Testament cycle of disobedience and consequence and repentance that held them captive. One can almost feel the cynicism in John the Baptist’s message to Jesus from prison. In the Message translation, Eugene Peterson phrases 11:3 like this, “Are you the One we’ve been expecting, or are we still waiting?”

John raises the question of integrity and authenticity with Jesus while being locked up in prison for publicly pointing out the lack of integrity and authenticity in King Herod. John the Baptist needed to know if Jesus was a real messiah, or just another fake messiah. Remember that there were lots of false messiahs running around the region, claiming to be God’s one and only. Simon was a slave of Herod who became a messianic figure when he rebelled in the year 4. A man named Judas of Galilee led a bloody revolt against a Roman census in the year 6. Theudus attempted a revolt against the Romans in the 40s, and was killed. There was no shortage of fake messiahs claiming to be authentic, which is why John asked, “Are you the One we’ve been expecting, or are we still waiting?”

In response to this question of the soul, Jesus doesn’t answer with a “yes” or “no”. He replies in 11:4-5 with an admonition to observe and decide, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Now that’s quite a list of miracles that Jesus recites. But frankly, they’re not all that uncommon these days: optometrists and ophthalmologists are constantly restoring sight, orthopedic surgeons and physical therapists help the lame walk, dermatologists readily treat leprosy and other skin disorders, ear, nose and throat specialists and audiologists offer inner ear implants and hearing aids to the legally deaf, EMTs and emergency room personnel resuscitate the dead, and Federal Reserve interest rate cuts bring good news to the poor!

Maybe the real answer to John the Baptist’s and our question about for whom we are waiting, is found in the first phrase of Jesus reply, “Go and tell John what you hear and see…” To find consistency between what we hear and see; to experience continuity between what is said and what is done; to be able to trust in the integrity of word and deed; now that’s an uncommon miracle, that’s the one for whom we are waiting! Fortunately, Jesus wasn’t struggling with the “actions-matching-words” problem. He wasn’t just talking the talk; he was walking the walk. That’s what convinced John the Baptist and others that Jesus was the one for whom they were waiting.

When we encounter such acts of integrity, no matter how small or simple, it does take people aback. The week before last I pulled through the Wells Fargo Bank across from Jerry’s and submitted a check for deposit with a request for $50 cash back. As I always do, I pulled ahead and double checked my deposit slip, cash and ID before leaving the parking lot. The deposit amount was correct, but the teller mistakenly gave me $100 cash instead of $50. So I pulled into a parking place and walked inside to explain the error and return the extra fifty bucks. The teller looked at me in quizzical disbelief, and the guy behind me in line chided, “What did you do that for? Are you trying to impress Santa?” I assured him that my Santa loves me whether I’m naughty or nice!

Henry Pryor from our congregation told me another story. A week ago yesterday he was at the Home Depot in Eden Prairie buying a Christmas Tree. He picked out a nice one and carried it up to the cashier. A complete stranger walked up to Henry and said, “I’d like to buy that tree.” Henry replied, “No, you don’t understand, I’m not selling this tree, I’m buying it.” And the stranger replied, “No, you don’t understand. I’d like to buy your tree for you.” And he slapped down the money on the counter and disappeared from sight. Henry was so flabbergasted; all he could do was pay it forward. So he made an equivalent contribution to the Advent Mission offering the next day in church.

After instructing John’s disciples to wait for those with authenticity and integrity, Jesus asks in verses 7-11, “Who did you go out into the wilderness to see? Someone in fine robes becoming successful at the expense of others? Or someone dressed in camel’s hair who speaks and acts as a servant to others? The latter is the one whom they sought and followed.

Becoming more like the One for whom we wait, doesn’t come without its bumps and bruises. I’m reminded of a wonderful description of Christian integrity in Margery Williams’ book: The Velveteen Rabbit and the conversation between the Skin Horse and the Rabbit: “What is Real?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Real isn’t how you are made” said the Skin Horse. “It’s something that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are real, you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all; because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

A T-shirt reads: WAIT TRAINING: The Ultimate in Strength Conditioning. It’s a play on Isaiah 40:31. “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Advent is a time of WAIT Training; gaining strength by waiting for the One who saves us; the One who doesn’t save us from problems and struggles, but the One who saves us for authentic lives of integrity in the midst of such problems and struggles. Consider all the opportunities you have to wait during this coming week before Christmas: at cash registers, gift-wrap departments, cruising for that last parking space at the mall, in line at the holiday buffet. They may be just the wait you need to see or be that saving presence!