How Good Are You at Waiting? 

a sermon by Rev. Rebecca Segers

Isaiah 40:21-31

Mark 1:29-39 

“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.”  Isn’t that an incredible passage?  There is something about it that just makes my heart sing.  I guess it’s the promise that, no matter what, with God, we shall overcome.  But as I was working on the sermon this week, I noticed something that I had never noticed before about it.  The experience that those who wait on the Lord are going to have seems to go in backwards motion: “they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint”.  First they fly, then they run, then they walk.  Doesn’t that seem backwards to you, too?  Shouldn’t we walk, then run, then fly?  Why might the prophet have written it this way – flying, then running, then walking?  Those who wait on the Lord will first mount up with wings like eagles, then run and not be weary, then walk and not faint.  What is that about?

Jesus is still in Capernaum living at Simon Peter’s house.  He and his disciples are returning from the synagogue and when they get there, the others who have remained at home, probably the women who would have been preparing the home for the Sabbath meal, tell them that Simon’s mother-in-law is not well.  Maybe even Simon’s wife is the one to let Jesus know.  We don’t often think of Peter or any of the disciples as being married, but clearly at least this one is.

Jesus immediately goes in to see her and takes her by the hand.  His touch is cool and gentle; it seems to lift her up of its own accord.  She feels the fever leave her body and feeling better, gets up right away to go in with the other women and begins to serve the men who have returned from the temple.

There are two small points I’d like us to notice here.  Number one: before the others come, she is isolated and alone, lying on a pallet in a room separate from the others, but as soon as she is well, she is able to join the other women where her immediate instinct is to serve others.  Her focus is not on herself, but on her role in the family, her community.  Number two: here Jesus is healing on the Sabbath again.  There are no Pharisees to notice and pick on him.  But it is markedly noticeable that as soon as the sun goes down and Sabbath is over, the whole town turns up with their sick and demon-possessed.  Jesus doesn’t care; he will heal as he sees fit disregarding tradition.  However, the rest of the town at least gives him these few hours before descending upon him en masse.

But once the sun is down, they are there with a vengeance.  Verse 33 literally tells us: “the whole city was gathered around the door.”  The whole city.  What would you do if the entire town showed up at your doorstep expecting you to fix their problems?  I think I’d go hide under the bed!  What does Jesus do?  He sets to work.  We are told that: “he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons”.  He opens the door, sees the enormous number of folk waiting for him, and steps into the breach, into the pain and misery and suffering of humanity and allows the healing touch that he has earlier used on Simon’s mother-in-law to attend person after person after person after person.  With each healing, he feels the energy flow through and out of him into the person in need.  Over and over and over again.  Until finally when the last person has been healed, the last demon has been cast out and told to remain silent, the last person standing at the door has been sent away with physical problems solved, Jesus is able to lay his head down to rest.  Can you imagine the scene at sundown: the numbers that were pressing in upon the little house along the lakeshore?  Can you imagine what Jesus might have felt looking out at the sea of humanity come to him for recovery and release?  Can you imagine how late he must have been up?

Yet the next thing that happens in our story is that Jesus is getting up again while it is still dark out, very dark, as a matter of fact, and going to a deserted place to pray.  He has had his heart and soul wrenched out of him the night before and he needs restoring and refreshment just as those who came to him were seeking it.  So what does he do?  He wakes up and takes himself away from the crowds – the small crowd that met him after worship the day before and the larger crowd that showed up at his doorstep later – and goes off by himself as a curative, a restorative, a time of comfort and consolation with the One from whom he draws his strength.

What does he do there?  He prays.  He spends time with God, the One he calls Abba or Daddy in order to find out what he needs to do next.  This is a wonderful lesson to us when we feel drained and unable to go on.  When we feel as though we are weary and might faint.  Jesus waits upon the Lord in this fashion; he spends time with God in prayer.

When the disciples wake up however, they realize Jesus is gone.  They may realize it on their own, but I’ll bet not.  You see, when they do find Jesus, they tell him: “Everyone is searching for you.”  So they probably wake up and more people have shown up at the door overnight with their sick and their maimed and their possessed in tow and Jesus isn’t there to heal them.  The disciples open the door and they are surrounded as Jesus was the night before.  They are probably overwhelmed by the numbers facing them and their own feelings of inadequacy, so they tell everybody, “Hang here…we’ll be back” and go to hunt for Jesus.  That’s right.  The Greek word here is katadiwko and it literally means “to follow after”.  In my mind’s eye, I see the disciples on the chase for Jesus like dogs in a foxhunt.  They find his scent and they are searching after him, hunting him down.

I don’t imagine they are happy about having to track him down, either.  How would you like to wake up in the morning and find your special guest with all the power and charisma and dynamism has taken a hike and you are left holding the bag?  Peter may even fear for his property or his family with all these people surrounding his home looking for something he can’t give.  He might even be leading the search looking for the One who can not only solve all the problems of those at his door, but who can solve his problem, too.

When they find Jesus, they rebuke him.  “Everyone is looking for you!” they tell him, as though he should feel sorry for the trouble he’s put them through.  But Jesus doesn’t respond the way you would expect him to.  (When does he ever?)  Jesus is clear-eyed again.  He is filled with his Father’s presence and light and knowledge of His will for him.  Jesus knows what he is supposed to do now.  He is no longer simply a healing machine at the beck and call to whoever wants him, in whatever way he or she wants him, he has a purpose and calling that go beyond the individual needs and desires of those who come to him in pain.

He answers, “Let us go on to the neighboring town; so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”  Let us go on to the neighboring town; so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.

He doesn’t go back to the crowd waiting for him at Peter’s house.  He doesn’t seem to feel guilt about those who need his healing and have sought him out in one specific place.  He doesn’t answer the call for help that is apparent in the disciples’ voices and in their seeking him out in his time away.  His purpose has been clarified and he answers it.

He has spent his morning with God and he remembers that while he has the power to heal, to take away pain and suffering, that’s an aside, it’s not truly what he’s all about.  What he’s here to do is to tell people about God, about forgiveness, about redemption.  What he’s here to do is to set people free despite their sin, despite their pain, despite their malformed limbs or their aching muscles, despite their desire for him to do it for them.  He tells the disciples, “Let’s get out of here and take the message to the next town.”

He realizes that it’s not about the individuals; it’s about the collective.  It’s not about taking care of a few in one little community; it’s about reaching out to all who are within his grasp.  So he leaves those behind who are waiting for him at Simon’s door, and he moves on.  For he’s come to do God’s will, not to seek his own advantage, not to become powerful or popular in one certain area, not to hold court while people come to him.

But he doesn’t go alone.  Jesus is hunted down by his disciples and when they rebuke him for being out and tell him he’s got to return, the first words out of his mouth are: “Let us go (on to neighboring towns and villages and so on…)”  He doesn’t imagine himself going alone.  He doesn’t see the message as a solo affair.  In inviting the disciples to join him on the journey, he also inviting them to join him in ministry, that they might also share the message and share in God’s love as expressed through them using their gifts and talents.  Jesus was building up the body of Christ even as he was still on earth, using these individuals who were not him, but had their own specific skills and abilities.  Jesus was letting them know and is letting us know today that He can’t do it alone.  Nor does he expect to.  He expects us to get up and get out and be the people that God intends us to be with God’s help and guidance.

Do you get it?  Both of the passages we heard read today tell us about waiting on the Lord.  Isaiah tells us to wait on the Lord and we will experience release and refreshment.  The crowds waited for Jesus to heal them.  The ones who came in the evening waited and got what they wanted, but the ones who showed up in the morning and waited were disappointed, for he never came back.  Or at least, not for a long while.  What do you think they did?  Did they stay in Capernaum or the surrounding area, waiting even longer for his return?  Or did they hear the word of his departure and follow him?  This would, of course, have meant more waiting, but an active waiting, a waiting that involved their participation rather than a passive waiting.  And what about Jesus?  He waited on the Lord, too, when he went out alone to the deserted place and prayed.  How good are you at waiting?  Even better, what type of waiting do you do?

We think of waiting as sitting back and doing nothing.  But in reality, in the English language there are two types of waiting.  There is that waiting that involves sitting around while others get around to you.  A passive waiting, waiting your turn, waiting for others to take the lead, to take the actions, to do the healing.  Then there’s an active waiting.  Waiting as in a person waiting tables.

There was a wonderful article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about a writer who went to Boston and waited tables for a week in a relatively high-end, fast-paced popular and busy restaurant.  He trained during the week with different waiters, taking one or two tables to start and by the end of the week was carrying a whole section by himself – or trying to, at least.  The article was funny and fun and insightful and as someone who spent the better part of thirteen years waiting tables, I can also say it was quite accurate.  He recognized that a waiter was someone who has periods of stopping and watching and seeing what was needed, and other times of simply doing.  A waiter is not someone who is passively standing around expecting the clientele to come to him or her and order, but someone who watches for the time when folk are ready to order or notices when there is a need and responds to it, serving them as required.  As a matter of fact, the new politically correct word for waiter or waitress is “server”.

I believe that this is the type of waiting that Isaiah is talking about when he writes that those who wait on the Lord will experience flight and so on and that this is the type of waiting that Jesus has done when he experiences a reconnection with God and that this is the type of waiting that we are to be doing as well.  That we are to be actively watching and waiting and listening for God’s individual word and call to us and then serving as we are called to do.

The more I read the Isaiah passage, the more I loved what seemed initially backwards to me: the flying, then running, then walking.  For it seems to me to follow our stages of life or ability.  When we are younger and God calls to us, we can wait upon God with eagle’s wings, we can soar to amazing heights in response to God’s call.  As we get a bit older, it seems enough run and not be weary.  Believe me, this is what I often pray for!  And it is true that if I keep the focus on God and what God would have me do, how God would have me respond, I often can run and not be weary.  Then as we move further along in our lives, to be able to do the Lord’s will, walking without fainting seems like a wondrous gift.  It seems to me that then, far from being backwards, this passage is speaking to each and every one of us, no matter who we are, no matter how old or how young, no matter or sick or how well, no matter what our gifts or our capabilities.  Each of us is called to wait upon the Lord.  Each of us is called not just to receive but to give.  Each of us is called to respond to the gift that God has given us in the forgiveness through Jesus Christ.  Each of us is called at different times, in different ways, to different degrees and if we answer the call to wait upon the Lord, if we answer the call to service according to our gifts and abilities, if we not only expect to be served, but to serve, we shall mount up with wings like eagles, we shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint.

I ask you: How good are you at waiting?  How good are you at putting the Lord first in your life?  How good are you at not only loving, but serving the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength?  Can you make this week one in which you wait upon the Lord and ask what it is that God has prepared for you to do, who it is that God has prepared for you to be at this time, at this stage in your life?  Will you spend some time this week in a deserted place, a secluded place, a place away from whatever crowds your life – and it doesn’t have to be people – and ask?

How good are you at waiting?  Won’t you wait and see?  Amen.