This week as I was looking at some of the groceries to deliver for our Christmas baskets I remembered a story that made me laugh. Two of our good friends got married and we were in college then, and all broke. So we gave them a grocery shower and filled their house with food. They held hands and sang God is So Good. What they didn’t realize, however, is that later that night while they were out, two of the guys came back and removed all of the labels from everything in their pantry. That poor newlywed couple had mystery meals for months. Now that would be a drag! We like to know what to expect, and we like to get what we expect. Open a can of green beans, only to find out it’s chili or condensed milk, and you’ll know how important expectation can be. Some things are just not interchangeable.

This is the season of Advent. As we have been saying all season, Advent is not merely a countdown to Christmas. Expectation is important and this is the season of expecting, the season of anticipation, not only of the Christ child, but of Jesus Christ, who will come again, and who comes into our lives every single day. We wait and we expect.

Well, that all sounds good, but what does it mean in 2004 to be expecting Jesus? Are you expecting Jesus? How do you know?
Our story opens with Mary walking down the road to see her cousin Elizabeth. The angel told her what would happen and she went with haste to go tell Liz and talk about these things. She believed and she knew that Jesus would touch her life soon.

And so I ask you, as you come to this Advent season, are you expecting Jesus to touch your life? I do not mean that you get caught up in the commercialism of the moment. Mary was expecting Jesus and she ran to Elizabeth to tell the news. When we expect Jesus we begin to make room for Him in our lives. Many of us remember what it was like to expect a child. We got the nursery all ready, chose the right hospital, and started to accumulate junk for that special day. When we really expect Jesus our lives begin to center around the One we are expecting.

Our text for this morning gives us some insight, I believe, into what it means to live expectantly. And so I would like, this morning, to give 4 characteristics of expectant living.

1. We are filled with joy.
[v. 41] (one of my favorites)
I would like to challenge all of us here this morning to look in the mirror as soon as we get home. And when you look at yourself, as this question: "Does this face portray the joy Jesus Christ?" I don't mean do you have a plastic smile on. I mean deep inside, is there joy? We all know what that looks like when we see it. Joy transcends circumstances. Joy portrays God’s love consistently through good and bad.

In this day and age a church is faced with competition and prospective members have a choice. Baby boomers, and now Generation X-ers, see themselves as consumers. And people know when our joy is real and when it is not. Who wants to be part of a joyless church? And so when you are asked to greet one another and to greet visitors please know that visitors are watching and experiencing and this just might be the deciding factor whether or not they ever come through that door again.

As a follower of Christ we should have a joy second to none. If you have a joy deficiency, talk to God. Ask Christ to touch your heart and face and expect him to.

2. Thanksgiving
The Magnificat is a song of praise and thanksgiving by Mary. She is not just thankful that she has gotten a special favor, but that God is good to all the people.
[v. 54-55]

Again, what part does thanksgiving play in your life? Ask children what they are thankful for...toys etc. Where did they learn that? From us!
Thank God for a love so incredible that He could even love ________ and me. When you think about it it’s hard not to just laugh because of the incredible love of God.

3. We begin to see others as more important than ourselves.
[v. 53]
In the kingdom of God, things get reversed. The poor here get fed, not the rich who might repay us for it or put our name in the paper or do us a favor we could call in at a convenient time. What is the message? God cares for us. Jesus Christ was the supreme example. He put the welfare of everyone else ahead of himself, and gave his life for us.
I am convinced that during this Advent season, if we are to expect Jesus we must expect Him to produce that same attitude in us. Let me offer a few suggestions: Find a way to help someone who will never know who helped them. Make a new friend. Support a missionary. Find someone who is struggling and give them affirmation, uplift them and be creative. Plan a party for them. Most people never hear the word "thanks" for what they do. If you are an employer, please remember that. Find an evening, even if you have to cancel other things, to go visit someone who needs a visit, or take them out, the way you would love for someone to take you out. You can be creative. Our Joy of Giving Shop is a good example. What I am trying to say is: love your neighbor as yourself. When we do that we show the love of Jesus because we have said to someone "You are important" to me. Later on we may even be able to tell them why. And the one who is really blessed is us! If you want to really experience Jesus this season, try seeing others as more important that yourself.

4. We begin to be less judgmental
[v. 48;]
I believe that a church should stand for righteousness and that we should strive to live as becomes followers of Christ. No question about it. But some of us have taken that to mean that we just don’t associate with anyone who acts differently than we do. Jesus was so different than that. He went to the liars and the thieves, and the beggars, and the homosexuals and adulterers, and the ones with punk rock hairdos, and the ones with needle tracks in their arms, and the ones whose music had a rebellious sound and lyrics. And guess what happened...they needed some good news. Sure Jesus told those people, go and sin no more, but He had a right to do that because they knew from being with Him that He said that in love. And I am worried that the Church today has such a narrow door not many are going to make the effort to squeeze through it. I wonder if Jesus would be welcome. Does it have to be that way? NO! Who can change it? YOU CAN!

Understand I'm not talking about compromising what we believe to be scriptural. There should be things we don’t compromise on. But neither can we compromise on the unconditional love of Christ! What I am asking you to do, as we are surrounded by the sights and sounds of Advent, is to ask Christ to come, right now to you, and through you to others.
And so we come full circle. Mary expected to be changed because of Christ’s presence. And because she was others saw Jesus too. This season what are you expecting? Let us pray.