President JOHN UPTON
from the Living with It was Advent season. A Sunday School teacher asked my son’s fifth
grade Sunday school class if they knew what the word Advent meant. The teacher informed them it meant “to wait.” The teacher then asked if they knew what they were waiting for at Advent. My son answered innocently, Santa Claus. The teacher laughed and said that was not the correct answer, we were waiting for Jesus, he told them. My son was very confused because in his mind Jesus had already come. My son was further confused because he believed that Jesus was with us every day. How could we be waiting for him, he was already here? Of course, it was one of those moments where both were right. Yet,
the question is still a very good one. What is it we are waiting for as Christians? What does it mean to “wait for Jesus?” That is not just an Advent question, it is an everyday question. To be honest, are we really waiting for anything? Are we anticipating
anything tremendous? Who among us is living with active eagerness? Who among us is expecting any kind of breakthrough of holiness into this world? Who is living with an open armed expectation of redemption? Bringing it closer to home, who in the Baptist World Alliance® family has any real sense of anticipation that it will make a difference in the world? Who is expecting a breakthrough of justice to come into the world because of what the BWA is doing? Who expects a global impact to happen evangelically because of what we are doing? Who is anticipating that our youth will see a bigger and more connected Christian family in the world, and because of that, will be inspired to deeper levels of Christian commitments? We don’t anticipate because we know better than to believe in miracles
anymore. Our experiences have taught us that when people get all whipped up with excited hopes, reality rolls in and crushes them every time. Life happens, or more often, doesn’t happen, and we are left with so much disappointment and frustration that we become cynical. When that happens life just becomes a matter of “getting through.” We
have hopes but they are reasonable hopes now. So, we move through our days, our ministries, our churches with our heads down, occupied with daily demands and details and distractions and fulfilling other people’s expectations of us. The result is that the part of us that would dream doesn’t really seem
to be breathing anymore. We take our comforts as we can and enjoy the various diversions of food, entertainment, books, movies, music, gadgets, projects, and so on. If we pray we keep our prayers rather small. The wisdom we have come to live by is acceptance. Accept what it is for what it is and be content. To that disposition Jesus had something to say and we need to hear it
fast. For the soul of the BWA, and for our own souls, we need to hear it. To this disposition Jesus said, “Wake Up! Stand up and lift up your heads, your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28) He said these words the week of his death. He says this to remind us that hope always comes in the darkest of times. We live in a severely broken world. It is hard to find much that would
encourage us. The global economics continue to devastate the poor. Wars emerge daily. Rocks fall from the heavens at random threatening human existence itself. It seems that little has been changed by our efforts. Yet, we wait. We anticipate. There is a promise of a Second Coming,
the final Advent of Christ. The language Jesus uses to describe that is a kind of surreal poetry. It is deeply symbolic, pointing to impenetrable mysteries. This much I think we can say from what Jesus has told us. The end of all things, whether it is the end of the world or the end of your life
or mine, or our lives together as we have known it, the end will have God’s purpose in it and the end, yours, mine, or the world’s, the end will bear the face of Christ to us. Jesus is telling us to stand up and lift up our
heads. Don’t live with our heads down, don’t live weighed down with all those numbing distractions and with the stupor of our present disappointments. Stop living mindlessly, forgetting the perfect love that is shining on us. We need to open our eyes and be alert to the power of love that can still astound us. We need to believe again that God’s love can change us and the world. We need to start living our lives by leaning into
that hope, live as if we truly believe it to be true. We need to live as if we are anticipating the power of that love. We need to give people reason to live with an expectation of the breakthrough of the love of God. I believe in the power of God to work in the BWA.
When Neville travels to speak, when Fausto leads workshops on evangelism, when Raimundo speaks of justice, when Emmett plans a Youth Conference, when Rothang offers aid to the devastated, or when Patsy leads the women and Forestal the men, I know they are pouring out their lives to help Baptists of the world dare to dream again. They dare to help the dream begin even now, to come true. When Billy Kim invited me to visit with Ban
Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations a few years ago, Ban Ki-moon said something that has stayed with me. He said the one thing that he most admired about Christians is their conviction that in the end all things will come together in Christ and all will be made new and all will be made right. You and I have a calling. We are to live every day in the anticipation of God’s peace, of God’s fairness, and that every tear will be wiped away. Let us stand and raise our heads. Our redemption really is drawing nigh. In that good hope may our lives become the expectant prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”
APRIL/JUNE 2013
31
Anticipation
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32