What Do You Expect?
Nov. 14, 2008
Fr. George Smiga
John 1:6-8, 19-28
A woman who was an avid conservationist, was driving up the Florida coast together with her five year old son. She saw a sign which said: “Naturalist Camp.” She presumed it had something to do with conservation and so she pulled in. She and her son began to walk towards the beach but as she looked around, it became clear that this Naturalist Camp was really a nudist camp. Before she could get her wits about her, a group of people on bicycles, stark naked, came riding down the beach right in front of her and her son. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing and just waited to see how the boy would respond. In a moment he turned to her and said, “Mom, those people on the bicycles, they were not wearing safety helmets.”
The young boy missed what was obvious about the people on the bicycles because he had other expectations. For him, the important thing about being on a bicycle was wearing a safety helmet. I think we can have similar patterns in our lives. Sometimes we have such clear expectations of something that it causes us to miss the other things that are happening around us. Sometimes we set our minds on what we think is going to occur so forcibly that we miss other things that are taking place right under our nose.
This seems to be the issue in today’s gospel, as the priests and Levites come and discuss with John. They are trying to figure out who John is and who Jesus is. But they are having difficulty because they already have expectations of what the answer will be. John, himself, recognizes this. He says, “There is one in your midst who you do not recognize.” His listeners do not recognize Jesus because they had already made up their minds what they were looking for.
Now the message of the season of Advent is that God is coming to us. God is coming into our lives; God is making the crooked ways straight and the rough places smooth. If we believe that God is coming, we must not let expectations blind us to God’s arrival. Many of us here find ourselves in a financial situation that is not as good as last year. We might already have made up our mind that this Christmas is not going to be as meaningful or as joyful as previous Christmases have been. But we believe that God is coming and we must not let our expectation of a lesser Christmas distract us from the new thing that God might choose to do. Our God is a God of abundance and so God can bring us joy regardless of the size of our bank account.
There are some people here this morning who have lost someone they loved in death. As the customs of the holiday unfold, they feel a sense of emptiness and loss because the people they care for are not with them. Now grief is real and it does affect us. But we must not let the expectation of what we are going to experience in the upcoming weeks hold us back. We must not presume that we will have nothing to celebrate. We must not let our darkness cover God’s light. God is coming, and our God is a God of hope. God can raise our spirits even in those times when death touches our life.
All of us have stresses and tensions in our families. Problems can be caused by divergent personalities, divorce, or resentment. As we look forward to the times when our families will be together over the holidays, we might carry the expectation that it’s going to be painful or a waste of time. But our God is coming, and our God is a God of healing. God can raise up moments of love and care even in families that are undergoing stress.
Our God is coming. Isaiah in today’s first reading says that when God comes God will bring glad tidings for the poor, healing for the broken hearted, liberty for captives. Let us then believe that God is coming, and let us not let our expectations or worries distract us from God’s arrival. Let us let go of our worst fears and open ourselves to the new thing that God can and will do in our lives. God is coming. Open your hearts in welcome.
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