Are we still waiting???

I was thinking about Christmas and how the Jews were waiting for a savior to put down the Roman occupation that was making them miserable. They observed the Passover Feast each year… in Jerusalem… eating together and then at one point in the meal they sent the youngest child to the door to see if Elijah was there. “Next year at Passover” is the response to the empty doorway. No savior this year. So instead of Elijah showing up at the Passover feast, or a king riding in with an army and getting rid of the Romans by conquering them.. swords and blood and all that… the real Savior sneaks in by being born to peasants in a shed. They are waiting for him to announce himself and he is quietly absorbing the Torah and all the teachings from the synagogues. Instead of being a rabbi, he is a carpenter with calloused hands and sweat on his brow. He came in totally opposite of how he was expected. And he lived and died the exact same way.

So when he died the Jews were still waiting for the savior to come and rescue them from their oppressors. They never figured out that they needed rescuing from themselves.. from their own sinfulness. John the Baptist preached it in the desert that repenting needed to happen because the kingdom of Heaven was at hand. They needed deliverance from talking the talk and not walking the walk. They complied on the outside and gave free license to what was going on in their hearts.

In a way it was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. She goes on this incredibly long and dangerous journey to find her way home looking for wisdom and courage and intelligence and even a savior of sorts. And it was all within her grasp the entire time. That is the way it was with the Jews. They were looking for saving and it was always within their grasp. They just refused to look inside. They refused to listen to what was preached. And so… he came and went and they hardly noticed.

Even now…. We can read of God’s promise and know that this Savior came for us today as well as for the Jews of old. We can read in quiet anticipation and know that all that we see around us one day will be gone. The Savior was born, the Son of God came, and Jesus the man lived and walked and worked and taught for us to do with our hearts what we have been commanded to do with our hands. His message lives and is as relevant and real 2000 years later.

But many of us are still looking for the easy way. Someone to come and make our oppressors disappear, our struggles to go away. We want a King to worship, not a man who was born and lived and died and changed the world with a whisper. We have it within ourselves to be saved… by bending our knees and looking above and knowing the Savior came for us today.