CHAPTER 1
Expectant?
Read
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6-7
Pray
Father, thank you for sending us the gift of Jesus at Christmas. Let that gift be not just be something for the past but also for our present. Help us expect you to still show up in our lives. Send your Spirit to make us aware of what you are doing around us. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Learn
Nine Months ...ITL]
She's young, she's pregnant, she's married (sort of), and the baby-daddy isn't her husband. Oh, and she claims her baby is divine.
Her name is Mary, and though the description above sounds like a reality TV show, it isn't. Rather, all this was a plot scripted by a Master storyteller who carefully chose a faithful young woman to play an important role in this drama. Yet having a teenage virgin carry the Son of God for nine months does take some planning. In fact, it took centuries. It's not that God needed that time to figure out how to work a miracle, but it took that long for everyone else to come to expect it.
God is a God of expectation.
God dropped hints about this divine bundle of joy long ago. God even gave the baby shower announcement to a prophet, who published it in the Book of Isaiah (9:6-7). Let me paraphrase the Scripture as a headline:
Coming Soon: God with Us The Baby Who Will Save the World
God was so excited to share this news that the announcement came hundreds of years before Jesus was actually born. It was like a director of a big-budget film dropping a few spoilers before the release of the movie because he's so excited about showing it to people. God, knowing this was a story that would change all other stories, gave humanity something to look forward to before the big reveal (a kind of teaser trailer, delivered by Isaiah) because God knew how this story would change us.
Try
Be creative and write your own announcement of Jesus' birth. What would you emphasize, and how would you spread the word in today's world? ____________________________________________________________________________
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Waiting
I hate waiting. I've gotten better about it over time; but when I was a kid, I especially hated to wait at Christmas time. Starting on Thanksgiving Day, my thoughts were constantly about Christmas. I imagined the presents I would buy for family and friends. And, like most kids, I dreamed of the gifts under the tree that were marked with my name. In my house, we were not allowed to pick up gifts and shake them; and the rule was that if anyone found a hidden present in the house, it got returned. It only made the waiting harder. I remember one year begging my sister to give me a hint about what she had bought me. She refused, so I did what any nine-year-old would do. I threatened her.
"If you don't tell what you got me," I said, "I'll take back the gloves I bought you!"
Oops. I was so anxious to find out my own gift that I completely let it slip that I had bought her some (rather lame) gloves for Christmas. I eventually got better about giving and receiving gifts, but in that moment? Not so much.
I struggled with waiting because I was expectant in all the wrong ways. At Christmas I expected to receive something, or many somethings, that were awesome. In my mind Christmas was about me. Later in life I came to the discovery that Christmas isn't about unwrapping gifts, though it's a nice perk; Christmas is about unwrapping God. In doing so, we find that this baby is the full embodiment of a God who has been conversing with humanity for a long time.
I also came to discover that God is expectant in a different way. God is expectant ... of us. God expects us to respond to the magnificent gift we have been given at Christmas: Jesus.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given....
God had been waiting a long time for the right moment to step into our reality. Genesis 3 tells us a story about Adam, Eve, and the perfect Garden of Eden. In Eden, God regularly spent time with this first couple. Everything was the way God intended it, especially his relationship with Adam and Eve. But when they listened to the snake (symbolic of evil) and disobeyed God, sin entered the picture for the first time. From that moment God set a plan in motion to redeem and restore all of us back to a perfect relationship again. God had been waiting a long time for the right moment to step into our reality.
Sin is the perpetual state in which we live. It's like the moon. The moon wasn't always rotating around the earth. According to some theories, it was flying through space. As it crossed through our solar system, it was caught in earth's gravitational pull and will remain in orbit around the earth until some outside force acts upon it. (Pay attention in physics class!) In a similar way, humans were set on the path of sin, and we will remain there until some other force acts upon us.
When God punished the snake in Genesis 3:14-15, God predicted a redemptive force that would act upon us:
So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
One of the "offspring" referred to here is actually Jesus. One might say that God is telling the snake, "You'll strike his heel, but my Son is going to destroy you in the end!" God has been waiting a long time to bring Jesus into the world and expects us to accept the gift of Jesus.
Why?
Because Jesus is the force that destroys our sin and restores our relationship with God again.
Consider
• In what ways are you expectant at Christmas? How might you be expectant in a different way this year?
• Why do you think God predicted the birth of Jesus over and over in the Old Testament?
• What does it tell you about God that the birth of Jesus was planned for so long?
• Why does God say to the snake it will "strike his heel"? Is there a plan for evil?
Role Reversal
God isn't just expectant of us but wants us to be expectant of Jesus.
There is no better illustration of this idea than in the life of Mary. We saw earlier that Mary was the one chosen for this grand story. She was informed of the plan by the angel Gabriel, who couldn't wait to deliver the news of her impending pregnancy with the Son of God. Still, Mary had some questions. (Who wouldn't?)
"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail."
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May your word to me be fulfilled." Then the angel left her.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!" (Luke 1:34-45)
In order to fully grasp this classic Christmas passage, you need to understand a few things. First, the expectation of Jesus wasn't a secret. The Jewish people were actively awaiting a Messiah to come and save them. But they didn't know who, when, or how. The angel appeared to Mary and answered those questions for her. What Elizabeth declared when she saw Mary, "Blessed are you among women," was absolutely correct. Mary knew what generations before her had longed for; she knew about and was carrying the Messiah. She was the one chosen.
Second, Mary's relative Elizabeth was a much older woman than Mary and had never been able to have children ... until now. God blessed Elizabeth with a son who would later be known as John the Baptist.
Third, Mary was nervous. She was already "married" to a man named Joseph. During this time, people didn't get engaged the way we think about it now. A man would approach the father of the woman he wanted to marry, they would make a deal ("Four goats, two chickens, and a rooster for your daughter?"), and then the man would go home to build them a place to live. They were effectively married then but wouldn't have any physical relations until the man came back to pick up his bride. Mary was in this in-between state with Joseph when the angel told her she was pregnant with God. Try to explain that experience to your husband! So Mary, more than a little nervous, ran up the hill to her cousin's house. As soon as she stepped inside, Elizabeth knew. Nerves turned into excitement as both women came to expect Jesus; they were awaiting their Savior.
The question is, do we have this same level of expectancy for Jesus?
Consider
• What would you have done if you were Mary? Whom would you tell? Would you be excited or scared?
• Do you have trouble telling people what God has done for you?
• Do you think God still speaks to people the way God did to Mary and Elizabeth? Why or why not?
• Is it possible still to get excited at Christmas about the arrival of Jesus? In what ways does Jesus still "arrive" every year?
God with Us
For a moment, place yourself in Joseph's shoes. Here was a regular guy who just wanted a wife, a family, and a quiet life. Then he found out his wife was pregnant before their wedding night. She swore God did this to her. What would you do? As divorce crossed Joseph's mind, God intervened.
Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us"). (Matthew 1:19-23)
God quieted Joseph's fears, redefined his expectations, and promised him a Divine presence.
Mary wasn't the only one nervous about this arrangement. Joseph was also a little worried about what to do. Yet God brought peace to both of them. God also told Joseph what Jesus was sent to do. People had long expected the Messiah to show up either as a military hero or a savvy politician. Jesus was neither. Instead Jesus would "save his people from their sins." True life and freedom, then and now, comes from escaping the perpetual state of destruction called sin.
Then God did something awesome. God told Joseph that his son would be known as "Immanuel," which means "God with us."
Jesus is God with us.
God expects us to accept the "God with us," this Jesus. The question is, do we come to expect God to stay with us?
Try
Jesus is given many names and titles throughout the Bible. Can you name five of them?
1. ___________________________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________________________________
4. ___________________________________________________________________
5. ___________________________________________________________________
Grace
In this book we are looking at four traits that help us unwrap the nature of God: expectant, dangerous, jealous, and faithful. We will examine these traits, but I also want us to understand what it is about God that leads to them.
God is expectant; this we know. But why?
I believe God is expectant of us, and we should be expectant of God, because God is gracious. God gives us grace.
It's a lot to expect for sinful people to stumble across the story of Jesus, believe a two-thousand-year-old book, and trust that God was born in a manger, died on a cross, and rose from the dead. Either God has impossibly high expectations of humanity, or something else is going on.
Which is it? I vote the latter. I believe something else is going on.
I grew up in a small United Methodist church. Every Sunday as a kid we were at church, often in the front row. I didn't always want to be there, but my parents made sure we were. For that I am thankful. I learned a lot about God growing up in church. But one thing I didn't hear, or at least remember, was this part about expectations. So allow me to share with you one key to understanding God, something I missed out on when I was young.
It's called grace. It comes in many forms and at many different times in a person's life. Grace changes people; it's the "something else is going on" part of the question.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)
God has expectations that we'll accept Jesus, because God shows us grace to get us to that point. Grace isn't deserved, but it's what you need. You cannot earn it; it's a gift. Before you even know what is going on, the Spirit of God is at work showing you this "prevenient" grace, which leads to Jesus.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them. (John 6:44)
God's grace is what moves in us, showing us that we need Jesus. We don't come to Jesus without being drawn to him. The good news is that we believe everyone is drawn to Jesus. When we accept this grace, that's when we find our faith in Jesus. It's a free gift given to all people.
But God doesn't stop showing us grace once we accept Jesus. God's grace extends well beyond that. We experience this grace in many ways that move us further along in our faith. One of the most important ways we experience this type of grace is when we receive Communion. When we take the bread and wine, we believe that God's presence is there showing us grace. That's why I love Communion; it's a moment when I come expecting Jesus to meet me. In fact, here's a tip: When you expect Jesus to meet you, he likes to show up.
God is a God of expectations. God expects us to place our faith in Jesus because God is drawing us to him. We in turn should have some expectation of God in our lives. The trouble is that often we have few expectations.
Perhaps if we value Jesus more, we'll approach our daily lives expecting his presence and grace to meet us. Jesus loves showing up where he is expected.
Consider
• In your own words, can you define the word grace?
• What does it say about God that God shows us grace even before we accept Jesus?
• What expectations do you have of Jesus?
• Can you think of ways to experience more of God's grace?
Listen
Every day this week, ask God to show you ways to experience more grace in your life. Then listen for a response. Approach this week expecting Jesus to show up as you pray. Write down what you experience.
Pray
Father, thank you for loving us enough to show us grace before we even realize it. Thank you for the expectation of Jesus in our lives. Send your Spirit this Christmas to help us accept your grace and desire more of Jesus. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
