WAITING ROOM - "Mercy" (Zephaniah 3:14-20) - Rev Mark Feldmeir - December 15, 2024

CURRENT (ADVENT) SERMON SERIES: Waiting Room

[ December 1 – December 22 ]

Waiting. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for the test results. Waiting for the traffic to clear. Waiting for the storm to pass. Waiting for the light to change. Waiting for your ship to come in. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the show to start. Waiting for the sun to rise. Waiting for a girl like you. Waiting on the world to change.

We spend so much of our lives waiting for whatever it is we fear we do not have and believe we cannot live without—and we know all too well that, as Tom Petty famously crooned, the waiting is the hardest part.

But what are we really waiting for? What are you waiting for? Maybe, in the end, what we’re all really waiting for is for our waiting to finally be over—to be delivered from the chronic sense of lack and the expectancy of what might be, and to finally be at peace with what is, with who we are, with what we have, right here, right now.

Advent is a time to acknowledge our lack and to wait patiently for that day when our waiting will finally be over and the peace we all long for finally won. In the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-Us, our waiting is at last fulfilled, and we have all we need to be who we are and to live as we are meant to live, right here, right now.