I waited patiently.
Psalm 40; 1 Corinthians 1: 1 – 9; John 1: 29 – 42
Psalm 40; 1 Corinthians 1: 1 – 9; John 1: 29 – 42
‘I waited patiently!’ The psalmist speaks of waiting patiently for the Lord. Have you notice how much ‘waiting’ is part of our life. We wait for trams, buses, trains, traffic, children, spouses, kettles to boil and computers to down/upload. If waiting is so much part of our living what does it do for us? How does it help us?
There are many references to waiting in the Bible. Waiting is explicit in Psalm 40. It is fairly explicit in the John reading. There is John the Baptist with some of his disciples. It is the day after John baptised Jesus. Jesus is still hanging around. John points to Jesus saying this is the one I said was coming. Implicit in John’s statement is that they have been waiting for this one whom history knows as Jesus of Nazareth. John explains that Jesus is the Messiah who will baptise with the Holy Spirit. The following day a similar conversation takes place as John points to Jesus again. It is a very interesting scene. Jesus is hanging around. Is Jesus waiting for something? Jesus did not just come and get baptised and go off on his mission. What is he waiting for? Two of John’s disciples follow Jesus and Jesus turns to them and says, ‘What are you looking for?’ The disciples ask Jesus if they can follow him. They go with him, but one named Andrew goes and fetches his brother, Simon Peter. Andrew says to his brother, ‘We have found the Messiah!’ Implicit in all this is that these people have been waiting for the Messiah. It seems Jesus was waiting for them to respond. The Bible has many examples of the followers of God waiting.
Paul in his 1st letter to the Corinthians tells them that they have been prepared to wait for the ‘revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ’. What has prepared the Corinthian Christians is their growth in faith and understanding and the gifts God has given them for ministry. They have been prepared to wait for God’s future to break into their lives [1 C 1:7].
I have had growth patterns in my Christian life that have prepared me for future ministry. In 2007 I had a burst of growth in the Lord. I had completed leading a prayer workshop where I was reminded to wait on God with expectation and in readiness. In particular Isaiah 40:31 became a Scripture God gave me. It reads, 31 but 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. At the same time I had the spiritual truth of ‘thanking God in all situations’ reaffirmed [1 Thess 5: 18].
Not long after this learning I attended the 8th World Methodist Seminar on Evangelism in Atlanta USA (June 2007). I took a less expensive 27-hour flight to Atlanta via China, which was delayed by 6.5 hours at its source, Tullamarine. Of course the whole schedule was thrown out. A 27 hour flight became a 72 hour flight. I finally arrived at Atlanta at 2 pm and after securing my bags went to wait at a designated spot for a 2.30 pick up time. I waited again with expectation looking for someone, and I waited in readiness. I was ready to move immediately. Well at 5.10 pm my hosts for the conference arrived. I had stood by a particular pillar in Atlanta airport and watched the maddening crowd in the second largest US airport go by for 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Now I am impatient and suffer from frustration. Throughout this 72 hour, experience I had prayed the lessons I had learnt again in the prayer workshop. I prayed thanking and praising God. And walking around the airport, especially where we were initially delayed praying for those very frustrated people and their little children. Throughout the experience God gave me a deep sense of peace. Finally arriving late to the conference I settled in immediately to the new time routine and conference schedule. The conference was one of the best I had ever attended. Not because of the intellectual content but the spiritual learning.
I wonder what it was like for those disciples. They always seemed to be waiting for something. Jesus had farewelled them with a promise [Acts 1: 4, 8]. They were to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them. Then they would witness to Jesus with power in Jerusalem and to the ends of the earth. And what a promise: power to go and proclaim Jesus all over the world! Did they get impatient?
What we read is that they waited, they waited expectantly, they waited together, and they waited prayerfully [Act 1:14]. God’s power came eventually on the day of Pentecost. They had waited for 7 weeks. The beginning of God’s future broke into their lives. They were ecstatic. They were brave. They publically proclaimed Jesus as the Lord. And amazingly a large number joined them. Their waiting resulted in a movement that changed the world.
We can learn from the disciples waiting.
Now waiting is not doing nothing. Waiting is an activity. When we wait we do things. So when I was waiting at the Atlanta Airport I reminded myself of what I had to do. I went to a designated spot in the Airport. A huge airport that was totally new to me. I checked my time and my instruction after an hour I phone the Conference Centre. It was only the second call that got something going. To wait means we will do something particular that is connected to what we wait for. Waiting involves preparation. The preparation is about getting ourselves ready physically and mentally. We prepare appropriately for the event or person we are waiting for. If preparation involves get ready for something important it also means that we are preparing ourselves. Something positive is taking place. We are improving ourselves, brushing up our skills, and generally lifting our level of attention.
Waiting includes expectation. There is an expectation of a future event, task or joy. Waiting always includes expectation: waiting to play the game, waiting to write the exam, waiting to enter the interview, or waiting for the important call.
We are beginning to see that that waiting has benefits. One decided benefit is that waiting gives our lives direction and purpose. To wait for something means we have some purpose in mind, some particular thing we want to do. To wait for God as the psalmist suggests means our lives have a particular direction and purpose. The purposeful life is a meaningful life. The Holocaust survivor, Viktor E Frankl, out of his own experience and observation as a psychologist understood the fundamental importance of the meaningful life. That is to wait for salvation means we have already begun to be saved. That is, to wait for God to act in our lives means God is already acting. Waiting is life-giving not life-denying.
In music one can hold back the beat momentarily, so that a tension is created as one anticipates the next beat. This technique is often used in Romantic music to heighten the beauty of the next note. Anticipation excites and energises the waiting person. Waiting gives us energy. Someone who is waiting for something, who prepares for some important event, who involves themselves in planning and preparation becomes an energized person. Energy is a consequent of having a purpose and direction in life.
Martha and Mary were deeply worried by Lazarus’ illness. Jesus is called. He waits two days only to arrive when Lazarus is buried. Martha for all her sadness about her brother’s death has a great hope in and expectation of Jesus. When she hears that he is near, she gets up and goes to him [Jn 11: 20]. She is the one with the energy to engage our Lord unlike Mary who is overcome by grief. For she is a person who has hope in Jesus, and this gives her the energy. She has the energy to chide Jesus. Jn 11:21 “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” As the conversation unfolds her waiting is rewarded in being a witness to the resurrection of her brother. We learn something important in the story of the raising of Lazarus. The story reminds us that God does not hasten to our aid, but waits so that in our waiting we grow in our understanding and faith.
I want to take this small reflection of waiting and apply it to our life as Leighmoor church. I want to suggest that if we become waiters we will become winners. Right now the only ‘waiting’ we do is in the sense of service to one another. We are waiters to each other, but not waiters together waiting for the revealing of God’s word to us. Yes, I am playing with words. But in that play lies a profound distinction for us. As long as we as a church focus on and prize our fellowship we will remain a declining church. When we enter into waiting for God to act we will become a growing church. With our waiting we will become followers of Christ Jesus, preparing, expecting, purposeful and energised. We will work together. And something will happen, but while we remain waiting on each and not waiting for God very little will happen other than we enjoy each other. I know what kind of waiting I want to do. What kind of waiting do you want to do?
There is truth in the Russian proverb that says the future belongs to him who knows how to wait.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 15/01/2017
pgwhitaker@tpg.com.au
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au
pgwhitaker@tpg.com.au
/ www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au
