Watch: Mark 12:1-12

Mark 12:1-1 (NRSV)

Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
    and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

Here's the thing about waiting. And watching.

Sometimes, what we think we are waiting for isn't what we are going to get.

And sometimes when what we are waiting for comes - even right under our noses - we miss it completely and even reject it.

Each Christmas for most of our lives, we have been conditioned to wait for the Christmas story to unfold as it always has. The baby in the manger.

The Shepherds. The Three Kings. The mother and father praying over their child.

Yet our story - the one we are so familiar with - was shockingly unexpected, and different, than what our creches and Christmas pageants portray.

The parents were poor and lowly.

The stable likely a cave.

The Shepherds, outcasts.

The Kings, not kings at all, and likely not three. Instead magicians or astrologers.

The season not a white winter.

Our God is a God of the unexpected. The expected Messiah was not coming in strength or might.  But as a small, vulnerable baby.  Born in a cave rather than a palace.

And when he came, there were many who missed him altogether. Saw him as someone in the way of how they expected their lives to be and so got rid of him.

So as we wait and watch, and especially as your expected Christmas traditions play out, look for the unexpected. 

Seek the unusual.

Partner with the lowly and the outcast.

And see what comes next!

God of surprise, open me to the possibility of the unexpected this Advent season that I might embrace it and cling to it with hope. Amen