Worth The Wait – Talk (Advent 1, Year C)

Passage:

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Opening Activity:

“How Long Would You Wait?”

Resources needed:

  • “How long would you wait” Worksheet (Click here to download worksheet)
  • “How long would you wait” questions (see below)
  • Something to use as counters –buttons, coins, bottle caps etc enough for one per person.

This activity is done at tables in twos or threes. Each small group gets a “how long would you wait” sheet with times ranging from one minute to a million years. Read out the questions one at a time, pausing after each one so that each person can decide where on the scale they would put their counter and explain why to the rest of their group.

Invite feedback from one or two groups after each question.

Questions: 

How long would you wait…

  • For the best meal of your life?
  • For your favourite team to win a trophy before you give up and support someone else?
  • To meet the perfect partner?
  • For someone to keep a promise?

Talking Points:

These are ideas and suggestions designed to help you to prepare your own talk rather than a script to use word for word.

  • We all experience what it means to wait at some point in our lives and we all deal with it differently. Some of us are naturally patient people who are willing to wait. Others of us are more impatient and hate any kind of delay.
  • The people of Israel had waited for thousands of years for the fulfilment of the promise we read in today’s passage. It is a promise that was first repeated by many prophets over hundreds of years through the Old Testament..
  • Can you imagine what it would be like to wait for something that generation after generation before you had also waited for? Would you lose hope?
  • In Advent we look forward to celebrating the fulfilment of that promise in the birth of Jesus.
  • But we also wait. We wait for the day when he will return to complete the work that he started. So what difference does that make to us today?
  • In the Lord’s Prayer we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” Similarly early Christians used the phrase “Maranatha” which translates as “Our Lord, come”.
  • Today’s Advent theme is hope, and the hope that we have isn’t just desperation or wishful thinking but the certain hope that Jesus is coming back! So why do we pray “your kingdom come” or “Maranatha” if we know that Jesus is coming back anyway?
  • Key Point: We are not called to just wait patiently for the day when Jesus comes back to make everything right but to be working towards a better world right now by praying for God’s kingdom to come in the world around us.

This talk is followed by the “Maranatha” activity.