Podcast Summaries

It takes more than that to embarrass me, so thank you very much. Hello. I'm just going to go straight in. Actually, I'm just going to pray for a minute. I'm not feeling amazing today, as you might be able to hear. So, let's pray for Jesus' help. Father God, we thank you for your church. We thank you for the way that you love us and you speak in and through us. Would you meet us here today? That we may get to know and love you more. Through all of the things, through cake and through worship and through conversation and through opening your word. Holy Spirit, would you come and would you fill us now? Amen. So, when I was little, the window from my dad's study looked directly up and down the road that I lived on. And from it, you could see the corner shop and the hairdressers and the primary school across the road. And crucially, you could watch any and every car that came down our road with great clarity. And every now and then, we would have family or friends who would be coming to our house for the day. We had a few friends and family who we would only see once or twice a year. But when we did, it was super exciting. And me and my siblings would often kind of pile into my dad's study, climb onto his windowsill. And we would like kneel at the window looking down the road, waiting for our friends to come. And we'd kind of turn around and be like, mum, what colour's their car? She'd be like, red? Because every car in the 90s was red. And we would be watching for every red car that would come down the road. And we'd go, is that one it? Oh, no, it's driven past. Is that one it? Oh, no, it's driven past. And we would start again. And until eventually, the red car came down the road, slowed down as it came, indicated to go into our little lay-by bit, and then came and our friends were here. And what joy prevailed. Prevailed? Is that the right word? I'll take it. Sometimes mum didn't know the colour of the car, or they'd got a new one in the past year. I know. And we would have this little like frisson of excitement when suddenly they were at our house, and we weren't even aware that they had arrived. Sometimes they came from the opposite direction that we couldn't see. And the next thing we know, there's a ding dong at the door behind us. And we'd be like, they are. We didn't even know. And sometimes we would just be waiting for ages, because we knew that we would be expecting them around lunchtime, which is the most helpless thing to say to a bunch of kids. It was before the time of mobile phones or location sharing or ETA updates. I know some of you can't believe I'm that old, but I am. And so from like 11.30, we would sit and we would wait and we'd look out the window, kind of itching and impatient, wanting the good thing to happen, wanting our friends to arrive. Knowing that they said they would at some point, but not quite knowing when. And sometimes they'd be delayed because of traffic or motorways or party training or whatever it was. But we would wait. Me and my siblings would wait in anticipation of the joy of their expected arrival. And I thought that's what we'd look at today. Waiting. Yes. Because today marks the beginning of Advent. Give me a hands up here. Who has ever engaged with the season of Advent in some way? Okay. Some people. Who's never even heard of Advent before? Oh, you'll get a point. Anyone heard of it but not really sure what it is or what it's for or what it means? Yeah, a few people. So Advent is the time in the church calendar that leads up to Christmas, a bit like Lent leads up to Easter. So where Lent leads us to look at Jesus' time in the desert and facing temptation and kind of encourages us to engage with our desert places or our response to temptation, Advent leads us to look at the Israelite nation in the Old Testament who were waiting and preparing for a promised Messiah. And Advent encourages us to engage with our times of waiting and to consider what it's like to live a life with anticipated hope, preparing for what's not quite here yet. And I know that there are many of us here today who are waiting. Waiting for a whole variety of things. Waiting for certain relationships. Waiting for a certain family setup. Waiting for healing, maybe in their body. Waiting for healing, maybe in their mind. Waiting for clarity. Waiting for an end or a beginning. Waiting for opportunity. And in a culture that, despite our aptitude for queuing, doesn't actually have to wait that much. You know, most things can be delivered or communicated pretty instantly. The question is then, if we are waiting and we are longing for something that isn't happening now or instantly or easily at all, how do we inhabit that space well? And if you're sitting there going, I'm not waiting for anything, then the question then becomes, how do we then walk well beside those who are? Because we are brothers and sisters and this is what community does. If we are not waiting but someone next to us is waiting, then we are waiting. And so, we're going to take just a minute to break some ice, chat to a couple of people around you, to three, four, however many you fancy, to be honest, I'm not going to hold you to account. And answer me this, what's the most annoying thing to wait for? Is it the swirly, like, scrolly, doom screen thing? Is it buffering on a video? Is it dinner time? Is it a bus? Go, you've got two minutes. Okey-dokey, all right. I would love to hear some things. And if you agree with that is an annoying thing to wait for, I want to hear you groan or make some sort of noise to agree. So, who wants to kick us off? What's the most annoying? Yes, Pip, what's the most annoying thing to wait for? People you know are going to be late, but you don't know how late. Yes. Classic. Anyone else? Shaz. Annoying to wait for people who never show up. All right, I agree. Ben. A&E. Oh, the wait to see a healthcare professional. I apologise on behalf of the NHS. Charlotte. One of the things about me is waiting, waiting, waiting for somebody like a social worker or an official government person. Yeah, so waiting for a service to be provided, essentially. Yes, I hear you. Absolutely. Ryan. Waiting in traffic. Surprised this didn't come up earlier. We've got a few people in traffic. Okay, I want two more. Waiting for food, just always. Whether it's cooking or being delivered or your... Yeah, all food is annoying to wait for food. And then we had one over here. Waiting for doctor's appointments. Again. Apologies. It's not my fault. That's not a thing. So, I know. Waiting for your dad to bring you a snack. Right? Yeah, I agree. Waiting for school to finish. Yes. Waiting for the end of term. As we mentioned earlier, Advent is this time of waiting and preparation at Christmas, ahead of Christmas. And it leads us to look at the Israelite nation who were waiting. And they were waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise to them, the promise of a Messiah and a rescuer. So, I thought we would read a bit about this promise today in the book of 2 Samuel in the Old Testament in chapter 7. God speaks through a prophet to King David, who was the king of the Israelite nation, God's chosen people. And he says this. Furthermore, the Lord declares that he will make a house for you, a dynasty of kings. For when you die and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his kingdom strong. He is the one who will build a house, a temple for my name, and I will secure his royal throne forever. From... Oh, we'll get a whoop. Yes, absolutely a whoop for the promise of God. From this moment, the Israelite... Well, and previously, but in this moment, the Israelites were living in the waiting time of this promise. Over the centuries that followed, they were experiencing all the world of warfare and corrupt leaders and oppression and exile, and they were waiting for a king to come and to save them from

at all, to make their nation a royal nation, a secure nation whose kingdom will last forever. Now, we now know that that anticipated king, the descendant of David, was Jesus. Absolutely. If in doubt, the answer is Jesus. The story we retell and we celebrate at Christmas is exactly this, the fulfillment of the promise given to King David and the nation of Israel. And we read more prophecies in the book of Isaiah about this coming king. We read the next bit which says, and many of us will recognize this from our Christmas time, it says, for a child is born to us, a son is given, the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. Amen. Some of us, as I said, might recognize this from readings over Christmas time over the years. And this is because, as we've said, the promised king, the long awaited rescuer comes at Christmas in Jesus. And so we are now living in the aftermath of that promise fulfilled in Jesus. But if you've been living in the world for five minutes, you'll know that there isn't always that fairness, that justice, there isn't always that peace. And that's because we are living in the in-between time of two big promises. So the first in the Old Testament was the promise of the lineage of the Israelite nation producing a rescuing king who would rule and reign. And Jesus comes and he kickstarts that kingdom. He absolutely, he turns the tide and trailblazes a new way of living. And with Jesus comes a second promise that Isaiah does give us a glimpse of, but which we can read about in the New Testament in the last book of our Bibles. We read in the book of Revelation, it says this, the second promise described. It says, I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, look, God's home is now among his people. He will live with them. So I'm not feeling too great and I'm really tired. So apparently all my emotions are at the forefront and this is wonderful. God's home is now among his people. He will live with them and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. And the one sitting on the throne said, look, I'm making everything new. And then he said to me, write this down for what I'm telling you is trustworthy and true. And he said, it is finished. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To all who are thirsty, I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings. I will be their God and they will be my children. Amen. Because this, this is our promise. In choosing to follow Jesus, we pick up the mantle from the Israelite nation and we move into the next chapter where we live in the tension of seeing glimpses of the kingdom here and now, seeing a move of God through Jesus's followers and through Holy Spirit, and yet still sometimes living with that longing and unmet desires. But with the expectant hope that he will come again to establish his rule and his reign in its entirety. And that's where we're at, isn't it? Okay, weird place to be. As we wait in this moment, in between these two times, we get to engage with our historical story with that Israelite nation. We can identify ourselves with this community who had this deep longing for freedom and for new life, this community who were waiting, maybe like we are too. We identify ourselves with this community, the Israelite nation, who had to wait for a really, really long time for their promised hope to be fulfilled. But this is why Advent is a wonderful time if you've never engaged with it before, because we can find solace in our own story. Many of us have a fair bit of agency to actually take charge of our life and kind of help ourselves and do all the right things to solve a thing that means that we don't have to wait. We go to the doctors, good. We go to see therapists, we read the books, we do the exercises, we learn to breathe. We are legitimately doing all the right things. I wonder how many of us can identify with this. Over the years, I have really struggled with sleep being a regular and wonderful companion of mine, or not. And over the years, I have done all of the right things for my prayer to be heard, for the waiting for a consistent stretch run of good night's sleep to be. So I usually, good sleep evades me basically. One and a half to two and a half hours a night, or over 50% of the time, I'll be awake and I'll wake up early before my alarm, which goes off at six already, which is too early for me anyway. So I've done all the things. I've taken away alcohol. I've taken away snacking after dinner. I've taken away screens. Like bedroom is for sleep only. It's a really calm place. There's no fighting. It's all wonderful. When I've been awake in the night, I've got up to pray. I've been like, I'm gonna take this. I'm gonna own this. And I'm gonna pray that this stops. I have stayed in bed to be like, maybe this is one of those nights where I just go back to sleep in five minutes. I've exercised, tried to include exercise in my routine more. Oh gosh, we need to do more of that generally. But I've got rid of the clock on my side of the bed so I don't know what time it is. I've done Lectio 365 app every night before I go to sleep to like zone me down and go to sleep. And I'm still here a few years later waiting for a stretch of really good sleep. For some of us, it is more significant. We're waiting for healing in our bodies. We're waiting for a first or a new job to open. We're doing all the right things. We really are. And we're praying about it. And nothing seems to be changing. And it would seem that sometimes it's just not enough. And so then what we have left is God's promise. And so we wait. And so we wait in expectation for the coming of Jesus again. We wait for God. We wait for Jesus. We wait for him to come to us. And so as we consider Advent, as we wait for Jesus to come, because all of the stuff isn't working and all of the prayers aren't being answered how we want, as we wait for Jesus to come in our longings and our desires, I just wanted to quickly take a little minute to look at the way in which God comes and the way that which God has chosen to come to us. This is not an exhaustive list, but it's just three things that I noticed that I thought I'd share with you today. The first is that he is a God who comes in unexpected ways. Firstly, the very fact that he is a God who comes to us is unexpected. He is not waiting from afar expecting humanity to make their way to him. He's not holding humanity aloof and in a state of servitude like many of the gods were considered at the time. But he is a God who comes to us. This is unexpected in itself. But then he comes as a humble human being, as a baby who became a carpenter, no less. Not as this charging warrior, not as a mighty, powerful, dictatorial leader that maybe the Israelites were anticipating. He's not like we usually go for a rags to riches kind of story, but he's actually the opposite. He's gone from riches to rags. That's the kind of king that he is. God comes in unexpected ways. And the second thing is that he is a God who comes at unexpected times. The Israelites knew he would come, but they had no idea when. We wait in anticipation of him coming again, but we have no idea when. It's very often when we least expect it. We've got the beauty of not being

alone in the waiting, because we know that Jesus comes through Holy Spirit here and now. There's a vicar and author, David Adams, describes this unexpected timing of God. He says, while we're doing routine work, he comes. While we're mending our nets or our cars, he comes. While the very life we seek is slipping through our fingers, he comes. When we toil all night and catch nothing, he comes. When we're tired and frustrated, he comes. He comes when life seems to be escaping us. It is at such a moment that he comes, for he comes at unexpected times. And then thirdly, he is a God who comes and he brings new life. This couldn't be more plain than literally the birth of Jesus, a new life, the long-awaited Messiah. Quite literally, new life when God comes to humanity. Because this is who God is. It's an integral part of the nature of God that he creates life over and over and over again. If you'll indulge me, I'm just going to read a little bit from this little book of Advent. I've had this for the last couple of years. It's a little devotional for each day. I found it quite helpful. It's all right. I've got it. Thank you. And this is a little excerpt written by a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. And he speaks of this new life like this. The Christmas story could be told simply with a happy ending where the gospel reading ends. Shepherds are cold, shepherds see angels, shepherds head into town and see baby, and shepherds disappear into the sunrise happy. If we ended there, Christmas removes us from reality. Christmas becomes something utterly remote about lives entirely different, fictional, naive, and tidy. That's not Christmas. Jesus came to the reality of this world to transform that reality. Not to take us into some fantasy kind of happy ever after, but to bring good news of great joy for all people. Jesus breaks in, not to help us escape, but to transform, to take hold of our past, present, and future. Jesus did not come for one day. Jesus changed things forever. Jesus does not remove us from reality. He indwells it, and he indwells us if we invite him. God comes and he brings new life to this life. So those are my three points on how God comes. And so as we ponder Advent, as we acknowledge the ways in which we are left longing, desiring, waiting for something, I'd just like to suggest a couple of practical things and ways in which we can respond. And the first is by adopting a posture of surrender. And I don't mean this to sound trite, because that sounds like, oh yeah, just surrender it all, fine. But actually, some of us have been waiting a really long time for the thing that we would really like. Some of us will be waiting until Jesus comes again in fullness before we see it. We'll be waiting until God's kingdom rules in all its fullness everywhere. During Advent, we are invited to prepare our hearts and our lives to welcome Christ in. And I think part of preparation is surrendering our waiting hearts and saying, here it is, Jesus, I give it to you. In order to make way for Jesus to do what only he can do, to bring new life in unexpected ways and at unexpected times. For us to adopt a sense of not me, Jesus, but you, not my will, but yours, not my kingdom, but yours. And surrendering our world of waiting and fixes into an expectant, anticipated hope of what is sure to come. A world with no more tears or pain or waking nights. And we let that be our greatest desire and our greatest longing. And I think that as we surrender that, as we say, let me let this go, the second thing we can do is to keep a lookout. Just as my siblings and I did back in the day, waiting for someone to arrive, watching for what we thought was going to happen. We need to keep a lookout for where Jesus is coming in our lives now. For he doesn't just come at two points in history, once in the stable and then once again in the promised one day. But he comes through Holy Spirit here and now, over and over and over again. It may be that he doesn't have the red car we're expecting. It may be that he's coming from a different direction. He may be coming at a different time or in a different way to the one that we anticipated or would have marked out for ourselves. But he is coming and he is here. So let's keep our eyes, our ears, our hearts and our minds alert to see where God is coming. Where there is new life, where there are signs of the kingdom breaking through. Because they may very well be in unexpected places and at unexpected times. This quote says, to wait is to stretch oneself forward. Not in mere passivity, but we are attentive and opening ourselves to what will come. And so finally we pray. And I think that surrendering ourselves and our longings and our waitings to Jesus and watching for him moving and expecting unexpected things changes the way that we pray. We can go from please would you do this, please would you fix this, please would you answer my deep longing to I give you myself again. Jesus would you come in whatever way that you choose. And so we pray for Jesus to come once more here and now. As you did back then and you will do again Jesus, would you come. In the waiting we cry come Jesus in any way at any time in any place. Would you just come. Our desire is for you Jesus. For all that Jesus brings, restoration and hope and peace and reconciliation. We desire Jesus to walk this with us now and we desire his kingdom to come in full one day and soon. And so in the, I can't even see the clock because the light's on the wrong way. Daniel would you come up. The kids are going to come back in at some point in the next 5-10 minutes but we are going to take some time to pray now. If there is something that you are waiting and longing for and you need people to stand with you and cry come Lord Jesus however you want to come. This is going to be a wonderful moment to do that. Because I think as we enter the season of Advent where we engage with our story as God's people so far and we wait and we prepare for the coming of Jesus, we want to take some time to bring our longings and our waitings and our pains and our plans to him. And so we are going to make room for him today.