12/21/25 – Sermon written and preached by Pastor Leigh Rachal @ FPC Abbeville, LA

 Waiting with God

My dad used to drive a mile or more out of his way just to avoid stopping at a red light.

It did not matter if the alternate route took longer.

It did not matter if it burned more gas.

What mattered was not having to stop and wait.

I think that, for him, waiting felt like wasted time.

Or maybe like being stuck.

I definitely got my own discomfort with waiting from him. 

As you all might remember, for the past two Epiphanies, my star word has been pause.

And for the past two years, I have proceeded to do very little pausing at all.

Life just keeps barreling forward at lightning speed.

Calendars fill up. One thing leads to another.

I will look up and realize the day is gone…

I do not pause well.

I do not wait well.

Perhaps this is part of why I insist on observing Advent

- because I know that we could all use a bit of help learning to live in the waiting. 

Advent means waiting.

That’s what Advent is about.

Waiting to celebrate the birth of Christ.

But also waiting for Christs return

and the day when all that was started by Gods indwelling will finally be made right. 

Advent is a time for preparing but also for pausing.

It is a time for waiting

but it is not inaction. 

We are not at some holy red light just tapping our foot until Jesus gives us the green light again. 

Advents active waiting is a bit like pregnancy….

As a child is stitched together in the womb,

the work of preparing the outer world for the child’s arrival is also going on.

And that task list can feel endless:

Paint the nursery.

Assemble the crib.

Stock up on diapers. 

But there is also a good deal of inner work that must also happen during those months of pregnancy…..

turning regular women and men into moms and dads.

It is an identity shift of huge magnitude. 

A friend of mine once commented, as their due date flew past,

that it was a very good thing that his wife’s pregnancy was going a bit longer,

because he wasn’t sure he was quite ready….

Of course, in other moments, waiting can feel like eternity….

And we wonder why it isn’t happening already. 

There is a meme that circulates about pregnancy that feels painfully accurate.

It says most months have 30 days. Some have 31.

But the last month of every pregnancy has approximately 125,789 days.

Funny how that works out.

Sometimes time does seem to stretch when we are waiting for something that matters.

This can happen in moments of joyful anticipation as well as those moments of agonizing unknowing or fear or worry. 

Minutes slow to a crawl.

Days feel endless.

Waiting has a way of bending time itself.

Psalm 130 knows this kind of waiting.

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits.”

This is not polite waiting.

Not calm, well-behaved waiting.

This is whole-being waiting.

The kind of waiting that changes who you are. 

The kind of waiting that settles into your body.

The kind that tightens your chest.

That makes it hard to breathe.

The kind of waiting that knows what it is to live in the depths.

And still, the psalmist says, “In God’s word I hope.”

Advent does not rush past that tension.

Advent does not pretend waiting is easy or holy just because we slap a candle on it.

Advent lets waiting be what it is: hard and honest and unresolved.

Then John opens his Gospel by pulling the curtain all the way back.

“In the beginning was the Word.”

Before clocks.

Before calendars.

Before deadlines and red lights and long months that refuse to end.

The Word was already there.

John tells us that everything came into being through this Word.

That light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. 

John doesn’t denial the darkness. 

John is clear that the Darkness is real, but it is NOT ultimate.

This beautiful hymn from John uses the language of Eternity.

We are talking about Cosmic things, it seems.

And sometimes that can feel a bit distant... A little abstract.

Until John says the sentence that changes everything:

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.”

In that moment - before all time, 

The eternal stepped into the ordinary.

The timeless entered time.

Metaphysically speaking, time only exists in this world.

God, of course, does not need clocks or schedules or countdowns.

And yet, the Word chooses to enter this realm.

Chooses to inhabit time with us.

God agrees to days and nights.

To seasons 

And delays.

To growth that cannot be rushed.

The incarnation is not just God taking on flesh.

It is God agreeing to live inside human time.

God has come…. To wait. With US.

God does not detour around the red lights of human life.

God stops at them.

God grows slowly in the pregnant pauses.

God waits for the right moment.

God waits through silence.

God waits through grief.

God waits through that long in-between where nothing seems to be happening, and yet everything is….

We wait for resurrection – which does not even happen the moment Jesus dies.

Love waits through Holy Saturday. 

Hope takes its time.

In my impatience, especially at Advent, I can find myself asking:

So what is God waiting for?

I know it isn’t: 

Perfection. God has never asked that of us. 

It is not efficiency….

And God is not waiting for the world to finally get it right.

I think God waits for ripeness.

Like a farmer waiting for the right time to harvest…

God waits…

For hearts that will be able to recognize resurrection life when it rises around them. 

For healing that will not shatter fragile souls.

For love that can be received instead of resisted.

Bethlehem tells that story quietly.

As the God-child is born….

In a small town. An ordinary place. 

There is no shortcut.

There is no spectacle.

Just a long night where God arrives without hurrying the moment.

Waiting does not mean nothing is happening. 

Waiting is often where the deepest work is unfolding,

beneath the surface,

out of sight.

John tells us the light shines in the darkness.

Not once the darkness is gone. 

Not after the waiting is over. 

The light shines now.

Psalm 130 promises that with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with God there is great power to redeem. 

But redemption is not rushed. 

It unfolds. 

It grows slowly. 

It takes time.

This is the good news:

We do not wait alone.

We do not wait for a God who is distant or delayed.

No - We wait with a God who has entered time itself.

A God who inhabits our waiting.

A God who agrees to be here,

full of grace and truth,

even when time stretches and hope feels thin.

So when waiting feels endless,

when days crawl,

when we find ourself tapping our foot at the red light, we can remember…

God is not outside of time, urging us to hurry up.

God is inside it.

Waiting with us

And that makes even the longest pause holy ground.

Thanks be to God. Amen.