April 11 -- "The Wait"

Waiting is hard. My first experiences with this reality was as a child each and every Christmas. It was so hard to sit and wait for Santa Claus to come on December 25th. In December my head would fill up with images of the great presents Santa was going to bring me. But Christmas was still a month away, then 30 days, then 29, then 28, you get it, right? The difficulty of this waiting reached its climax on Christmas Eve. For years, I don’t think I got more than a couple of hours of sleep in anticipation of Christmas morning. Waiting is hard – it’s a universal truth, and it doesn’t go away when we get older; Amazon’s overnight, or same day delivery, is a perfect example of us trying to defeat the curse of waiting for something, anything. Holy week has one day that seems out of place, and we really don’t know what to do with it. It’s Saturday – the day after Good Friday and the day before Easter Sunday. The days leading up to Saturday are so busy – we have elaborate services on Palm Sunday when we look at Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. , Then comes Maundy Thursday where Jesus institutes his holy meal, then goes out to the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas betrays him and he is arrested. Things pick up speed Maundy Thursday night as Jesus stands before the Sanhedrin court. This trial, along with a great deal of mocking, lasts all the way into Friday morning. And things get even busier then. Jesus is brought before Pilate, he faces another trial, we see people turning their backs on him. The mocking is now taken over by the Roman soldiers. Jesus is condemned and immediately led out to Golgotha, where he is crucified. Later that afternoon he dies, and is taken down and placed into a tomb. What a hectic week! And Easter can be seen on the horizon. But before Easter comes we have Saturday. On Saturday we find ourselves with nothing to do, or witness. Everything is eerily quiet. So often we complain often about how busy we are, but the fact is that most of us would rather be too busy than to have nothing to do. That’s what makes Saturday so difficult – there’s nothing to do. There is no action. We are left sitting and wait for something to happen. We are at the whim of a God who works on his time, not ours. Today we are living in the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Today, we wait. But, I ask you to do it prayerfully and if at all possible, quietly. Don’t fight the anxiety of waiting by filling your day with numerous tasks. Instead, sit with the silence and embrace the waiting. Imagine what the disciples and women are doing and feeling on this very day years ago. Place yourself in the Holy Week story and share with God what you are thinking. Allow the stillness of Saturday to become your holy time with God. The waiting won’t last forever. Tomorrow will come, and when we talk about tomorrow with God – we always find hope. Always! This year is unique in that we find ourselves with more time for silence, reflection and waiting than we have had maybe our entire lives. We sit and wait for the “safer at home” ban to end. We wait for Covid-19 to do its worst and then dissipate. We wait for things to return to some semblance of normal. We can’t shortcut the process, we can’t call Amazon and have them send a cure through same day delivery. We have to wait. Waiting is hard, but waiting with God makes it easier, for we know that God’s tomorrow brings hope, brings resurrection, brings joy, brings new life. God’s tomorrow is wonderful ... but for today, we must wait. God bless you all, Dan Next Wednesday’s devotion: “The Feast of Laughter”