Jerry’s Grill: Expectation vs. Expectancy

Posted by admin

September 7, 2008

A Sunday School teacher told her seven year olds about becoming Christians. Then she handed out pencils and slips of paper and invited the children, if they were ready to trust Jesus, to write, “I accept Jesus.” Many children did so. But one little boy got the wording muddled. Instead of writing, “I accept Jesus,” he wrote “I expect Jesus.”

Shouldn’t this be the spirit of missions? It’s not just about sparing a fraction of our income to give towards missions or even about leaving our jobs to serve God in the mission field. Yes, these action steps are integral and necessary in missions but these are just the results that come after we set our hearts on God and expect Jesus.

In Luke chapter 7 we find the story of Jesus declaring to everyone present that there is no other person greater than John. Then, starting in verse 24, Jesus turns to the people and uses the moment to teach on the should-be-missionary attitude. He doesn’t use those terms, but I think that distinction gets to the gist of what he says.

· “When you went out to see John what did you go to see?” - What were you expecting?

· “A reed swayed by the wind?” — Some milquetoast easily influenced by public opinion, bending to whatever winds were blowing? No.

· “Did you go to see a man dressed in fine clothes?” — Some blowhard trying to bend others to do his will? No.

· “You went to see a prophet.” - You traveled in this hot dry desert to see and hear someone who spoke for God, no matter what the cost.

This statement of Jesus is not just typical “introduction of the speaker” stuff. He beautifully crafted the description of a missionary, his calling and his life. A missionary is called to declare that God could break forth amidst the tragic and the ordinary, instilling the hearts and minds of the people that God is for us and not against us, that good can come from bad.

But, even in the time of John, it turns out that not everyone actually wanted to hear from God. There are those who wanted to hear God as long as God was saying what they wanted to hear. If God had something else to say, they will reject it.

It is then imperative for the missionary to know the difference between expectation and expectancy. Generally, instead of expecting God to break through, people tend to narrow their expectations on what the Messiah will look like and what the Messiah will do. In Jesus’ time, the premier expectation was that the Messiah will look like a warrior and will destroy Israel’s foreign occupiers, the Romans.

John asked this question about Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Yes, God had promised to send the Messiah. God would reclaim his people as his own. That belief fuels hope. It carries them through the darkest times. It gives them joy in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. That is expectancy. But somewhere along the line that sense of expectancy shifts to expectation. Expectation dictates terms. It sets conditions. It insists that the future look a certain way.

True missionaries stop expecting things from Jesus and, instead, nurture an attitude of breathless expectancy of what He will still do. They go on singing that old charismatic renewal song: “Something good is going to happen—to happen to you. … Jesus of Nazareth is coming your way.”

[Flickr IMG by enamor]