Great Expectations

May my true inspiration be a baby laid in a manger; that his life and his words may be for us our guide and our path. Amen.


Expectations.

We all have expectations. We know what we expect from ourselves. We know what we expect from our kids. We even know what our parents expect from us.

Everyone has expectations about the behaviour of everyone else. We all have expectations about our own behaviour. Expectations are seldom met. Sometimes this is because they are set too high. Sometimes this is because they just don’t fit.

Even Mary and Joseph had expectations of Jesus. They expected him to act like every other Jewish boy of his age. In our story today, they made their journey as part of a larger group of family and friends, all from the same area. Mary and Joseph expected Jesus would stay with that group.

Jesus, too, had expectations of his parents which were not met. Jesus expected them to understand what was important to him. He expected them to know where he would be. He did not expect that they would have to search for him or that they would have any reason to worry about him. He knew where he was supposed to be. They should know it too.

In the temple, it would be expected that a boy of his age would just sit and listen. Jesus did not do this. He joined in the discussion between the rabbis as an equal. He asked questions of them and answered some of theirs with great wisdom. This was not what they expected.

We are coming up to a time when we set expectations for ourselves. Has anyone heard of a new year’s resolution? … This is actually two expectations at the same time, or at least it is for me. New year’s resolutions are expectations that we set for the coming year. In many cases, these expectations are hugely unrealistic. There is no way we can keep them and we know it when we make them. This is our second expectation. We expect that we will break our new year’s resolution.

Why do we bother to have expectations? They never seem to come true so what use are they? And why does it seem so important to us that we have them?


I’m going to keep things short today and leave you with a few more thoughts.


Expectations that are too high can beat down our spirits.

Expectations that are too low are uninspiring.

Expectations that are at the edge of our ability can inspire us to do great things.

In the Christmas season, we celebrate the expectation that Christ will be part of our lives and that Christ will come again.

The Bible tells us that God expects us to be “very good.” God does not expect us to be perfect, but we are expected to do our best.