Checking Our Expectations

Third Week of Advent – Wednesday

Isaiah 45:6c-8, 18, 21c-25 / Psalm 85:9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14 / Luke 7:18-23

Checking Our Expectations

Sometimes we don’t know what to expect. We accept an invitation to a party with people we don’t know too well. We join a new ministry at the parish. We take a job with a new company. We move to a new house or a new community.

Usually there comes a point when things are not going quite the way we had planned or expected in this new house, job, community, or at this strange party. At those times we begin to wonder what we are doing there, and just what we got ourselves into. John the Baptist has reached that point in his Messiah-waiting ways. He took the risk of his vocation and his expectations of the Messiah. He thought it was Jesus. But now he has his doubts. Maybe it’s the pressure of prison life that has caused him to re-evaluate his opinion of Jesus. Maybe he’s wondering if doing hard time for the sake of the kingdom is worth it all. Who knows what is going through John’s mind as he sends his envoys to Jesus?

As a season of preparation, Advent is a natural time to look at what kind of Messiah we expect to come into our lives this Christmas – and every day.

Christ continually disappointed, or perhaps exceeded, people’s expectations of him. Sometimes our hopes and expectations are just not what God has in mind. With these differing expectations we can limit his work in us. But we can periodically check on what we expect from God and Christ to see if these expectations are reasonable, Biblical and authentically Christian.

·         What do you expect of God and Christ?

·         Do your expectations of God limit the Spirit’s work in you, or open you to it?