Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
February 8, 2009
Isaiah 40: 21-31;
Mark 1:29-39

How, Then, Shall We Wait?

And so we wait. We wait at the traffic light. We wait in line at the Registry. We wait for Obama and the stimulus package to save us. We wait for our children to come home from school, our spouse from work, our brother from war. We wait for the diagnosis. And – we wait for the end of this interim period here at Edgewood Church.

What does it mean to “wait?” And how, then, shall we wait? For one thing, we need to recognize that waiting is not passive. For example, we wait for the snow to arrive – while we buy our bread and milk, gas up the snow blower, cancel school, and issue parking bans. “Waiting” is about anticipating or expecting something or someone, being and remaining ready and available. So “to wait” is an active thing. It means to look forward to something, to be prepared for it to happen.

This week, I attended a meeting of agency leaders, some of whom are in the business of workforce development – organizations like Dorcas Place, Amos House, and the RI Family Life Center working with people coming out of prison. They spoke of training the unskilled to be “shovel ready,” that is prepared for new technologies and new jobs as they are developed.

Well, the Israelites were “shovel ready,” to use today’s lingo, to return to Jerusalem. Fifty years were enough. Isaiah heralds the good news of the end of the Babylonian Exile (40:21-31), a message of imminent salvation in a time of hopelessness. What they have been waiting for is coming. Do you not know it? Hear it? See it? Taste it?

In the Hebrew Bible there are many references to “waiting” but it is pre-eminently for God that one waits. The root of the word “wait” translated from the Hebrew connotes “tension” and “endurance” and “to set one’s hope on.” And so Isaiah is sure that those who wait, can wait in confidence and faith and hope and expectation.

They had been waiting – and their waiting had paid off in a new consciousness of their identity as a people called by God. For it was in exile when the Hebrew people gathered their stories, consolidated their community, wrote the defining books of the Torah, and codified their identity as the Jewish people. But now after 50 years of exile, Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonians, and the Israelites were freed by this unlikely agent of Yahweh. They were ready to strike their tents, to return to their homeland, and to establish the Jewish nation. About this, the prophet Isaiah proclaims in no uncertain terms that God is in charge. And in some of the most familiar and beloved poetry the world has ever known, he bears witness to a new reality:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth (vs. 21)?

It is [God] ...who brings the princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing (vs. 23).

[God] gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless (vs. 29).

...those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint (vs. 31).

Now, let’s “fast forward” to the New Testament. Here, we wait, too. We wait in the season of Advent for the birth of the child in Bethlehem. We wait in the season of Epiphany for the coming of the Magi. We wait for Jesus to begin his ministry and for people to grasp his message and his meaning. Then we wait for the religious leaders and Roman governor to kill Jesus. Finally, we wait at the cross and the tomb. And, now, as Mark is writing, the early church waits for Jesus to return.

In the Greek, the word “wait” has an active connotation of “take” or “receive”. One who waits is expecting to receive, and in the New Testament, waiting is usually related to salvation. In today’s Gospel lesson, we see people waiting with expectation and the hope of being saved from this latest calamity.

One can assume that the people who waited at Simon Peter’s house for Jesus to come expected that he would be able to heal Simon’s mother-in-law. Imagine their anxiety over this capable grandmother who usually took care of the household, now burning with fever, bed ridden, helpless.
Is she possessed of a demon? What other explanation was there? Fear lurked in the corners of the room. Her daughter must have been putting cold cloths on her head; hushing the grandchildren to be quiet, looking down the dusty road for a sign of Jesus.

And then Jesus was there. And he took her by the hand, and she was able to rise and minister to them. Simon’s mother-in-law, then, became the first deacon, the first servant of the church. We post-modern church-goers miss the significance of this text. Lawrence Wood writing in the Christian Century [1] reminds us that Jesus risked catching her illness and risked ritual uncleanliness – just by touching a woman.

Did he know Simon’s mother-in-law? Had he been in her home before, perhaps served by her before? I expect so, probably often. Jesus behaves like “family” as he enters the home of Simon.
And so the text serves as a reminder that the early church was very much a family affair.

So, it would be helpful for us to remember, in this time of waiting, that attention to each other and our church family is always in order especially during times of waiting. Look around you in the pews. Whom are we missing? Who hasn’t been in church recently? Is he or she all right? Just busy? Or are they in trouble? Has someone in that family lost a job? Are they facing a physical, emotional, or spiritual crisis? Do they need our pastoral care? Would you make a call to that person? Shall I visit that family? This is important. We must not be too busy, ourselves, to reach out. We are called to bring the good news of God’s love to each other. We are family and families take care of each other.

And something else, too, while we are waiting: Jesus models for us the importance of prayer. “In the morning, while it was still very dark,” Mark writes, “he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” Notice that Jesus is waiting on God in order to renew his strength.

Yes, he is willing to serve and heal the people who crowd around him, but all of his great crowd scenes are followed by a time apart to pray, to recover, to be renewed.

The disciples, of course, don’t understand this. They are busy managing the Galilean tour, and their main act keeps disappearing. Mark says they “hunted” for him – but the word literally means they “chased him down.” Everyone was searching for Jesus, waiting for a miracle.

And what of us? Maren Tirabassi [2] writes,

Gentle Savior,
I have been searching for you –
for your healing,
for your good news,
for your casting out of all those things
that feel to me like demons.

I have wandered in
the sundown of my hope,
and the fevers of
my too-much working.
I have gathered
those I love
and stood at the door,
eager for a personal miracle
that would prove
you love me.

But finally I find you
only in the deserted place,
the place of prayer
where no one else can come
but me,
and I cannot hide.
All my searching
turns around –
you have found me.

How, then, shall we wait?

We will wait in all the places in our lives where we need salvation. But know that we wait together, in rising and serving each other, and in quiet confidence that God will heal those whose hearts are broken, God will comfort those who have been trampled, and God will lift on Holy wings those who are falling. May it be so, us!in and through

Amen.

1. “Reflections on the Lectionary,” January 27, 2009, p. 19.
2. An Improbable Gift of Blessing, Cleveland, OH: United Church Press, 1998, p.41.