The Disappointment of Not Waiting

The Disappointment of Not Waiting

(John 1:1-18)

Yearly Theme:  “Patience is…”

Series Title:  “The Advent of Patience”

December 18^th, 2022

Something to think about:

Today we will be exploring the disappointment of not waiting by looking into John’s perspective of the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter one.  John’s take on the birth of Christ is quite different that Matthew’s or Luke’s.  John doesn’t focus on the birth narrative, perse, but instead jumps straight into the purpose of His coming to earth.  After he spends several verses establishing Jesus’ divinity, John moves swiftly into how Jesus was received by the masses, especially His own people.  Let’s take a closer look this morning:

John 1:10-18 (NLT),

¹ In the beginning the Word already existed.

The Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

² He existed in the beginning with God.

³ God created everything through him,

and nothing was created except through him.

⁴ The Word gave life to everything that was created,

and his life brought light to everyone.

⁵ The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness can never extinguish it.

⁶ God sent a man, John the Baptist, ⁷ to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸ John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. ⁹ The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹ He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. ¹² But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³ They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

¹⁴ So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

¹⁵ John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’ ”

¹⁶ From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

Here’s the takeaway this morning:

Key Point:  “The consequences of not waiting on GOD are spiritual blindness and unbelief.”

So where does the problem lie?  How is there disappointment evidenced in this particular narrative, and why is this important for us to understand?  Consider the following.  Disappointment can lead to…

• A lack of belief that leads to an  to see.

John 1:10 (NLT), He came into the very world he created, but the world did not recognize him.

• A lack of belief that leads to  .

John 1:11 (NLT), He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.

• A lack of belief that  its own  .

Mark 8:11 (NLT),  When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him. Testing him, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.

Luke 9:23 (NLT), Then Jesus said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.”

Something to take home:

In his book, Catching the Light, quantum physicist Arthur Zajoc writes of what he describes as the “entwined history of light and mind” (correctly described by one admirer as the “two ultimate metaphors of the human spirit”).  For our purposes, his initial chapter is insightful:

“From both the animal and human studies, we know there are critical developmental ‘windows’ in the first years of life.  Sensory and motor skills are formed, and if this early opportunity is lost, trying to play catch up is hugely frustrating and mostly unsuccessful.

“Professor Zajoc writes of studies which investigated recovery from congenital blindness.  Thanks to corneal transplants, people who had been blind from birth would suddenly have functional use of their eyes.  Nevertheless, success was rare.  Referring to one young boy, ‘the world does not appear to the patient as filled with the gifts of intelligible light, color, and shape upon awakening from surgery,’ Zajoc observed.  Light and eyes were not enough to grant the patient sight.  ‘The light of day beckoned, but no light of mind replied within the boy's anxious, open eyes.’

Zajoc quotes from a study by a Dr. Moreau who observed that while surgery gave the patient the ‘power to see,’ ‘the employment of this power, which as a whole constitutes the act of seeing, still has to be acquired from the beginning.’  Thus, he concludes, ‘To give back sight to a congenitally blind person is more the work of an educator than of a surgeon.’  To which Zajoc adds, ‘The sober truth remains that vision requires far more than a functioning physical organ.  Without an inner light, without a formative visual imagination, we are blind,’ he explains.  That ‘inner light’ -- the light of the mind – ‘must flow into and marry with the light of nature to bring forth a world.’”[1]

We can either be disappointed by what the light exposes, or we can learn to embrace the truth that may have remained hidden for so long in our lives.  We can learn to embrace the truth of Christ, and believe in faith that in Him there is eternal life, or we can gamble on our own solutions and in so doing miss eternity through our own blindness to the truth. 

If Jesus isn’t what you expected, you may need to ask yourself why?  What were you expecting?  Are your expectations rooted in the truth of GOD’s word, or in your own preconceived notions about who Christ is, or should be?  Jesus can be none other than Who He is, and Who He is is Immanuel, Savior, Messiah, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  There is no other hope apart from Him, and there is no other way to salvation except through Him.

Key Point:  “The consequences of not waiting on GOD are spiritual blindness and unbelief.”

[1] “National Right to Life News,” March 30, 1993, p. 22