Wait on the Lord
Commentary
Object:
Do you like to wait? I don't. In fact, most of us hate to wait. You can see it most anywhere... at stoplights, in traffic jams, in waiting lines at the grocery store... no one much likes waiting.
I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Good things come to those who wait." Well, that guy lost his bumper. Someone stole it. I'm not sure if they wanted the bumper or just to get rid of that bumper sticker.
We hate to wait so much that it has led to all kinds of inventions -- microwaves, fast food, instant coffee, instant grits, instant just about everything.
"Wait." How I hated that word when I was younger (I'm still not fond of it). You asked for something or wanted to see something happen so badly only to hear someone say, "Let's wait and see."
No one likes to wait for anything. Why should we? Waiting is a waste of time and sometimes waiting can get unbearable.
The Israelites had been in Babylonian captivity for many years. For a long time they had waited for God to deliver them and they had almost given up hope. The wait was just too long. It seemed hopeless. It seemed God had forgotten them.
Isaiah 40:21-31
Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah are called "Second Isaiah." The whole tone of these passages seems to be a different time and situation from the first portion of the book. It's apparently just before the exiles are released and also covers the generation following. Unlike the notes of doom and gloom in the preceding chapters, this prophet is privileged to give a message of comfort and joy. God was coming to take them home and restore them (which is the message of 40:1-11 and much of Second Isaiah). In 40:12-31 we find a hymn/song of praise to God as Creator of the universe. Today's reading gives us several verses of that hymn.
You get the feeling from reading this passage, especially if you begin with verse 18, that the prophet is in a spirited debate. The subject of the debate seems to be that some of the people are thinking or arguing that God is only one god among many and not the most powerful one at that! After all, if Babylon had conquered them, did this not also mean that the gods of Babylon were more powerful than their God?
This, however, went against everything that they had been taught. So the prophet refers to their traditions (v. 21). They were ignoring or forgetting the very fundamentals of their faith.
What was it that they had been taught from the beginning? That God sits sovereign over all creation as its Creator. God was the one who stretched out the heavens like a tent (v. 22). To God, everyone is as an insect in terms of might, even mighty princes, even the princes and leaders of the Babylonians, as God was about to show through the release of the people from exile (v. 23). As powerful and many as they appear, they are but stubble or dried grass that is blown away by one blast from God's nostrils (v. 24). Indeed, God has no equal (v. 25). Pointing to the heavens, perhaps the stars, which were seen as deities by the Babylonians, Second Isaiah reminds them that God is the one who made them all and that God, not these astral creations, controls the course of history.
The people had been languishing in exile for decades. They began to lose hope of ever returning home. In fact, they began to doubt that God could or would do this. It is as if they are, in fact, bringing a kind of lawsuit against God, claiming that God had not or could not fulfill the covenant promises made way back to Abraham.
Here's how they felt: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God" (v. 27). In other words, God had forsaken or forgotten them. Indeed, God had turned his back on them! What is being questioned is not so much God's power as God's will or love for them. It was the same feeling that many Jews expressed during and after the Holocaust. How does one maintain faith in God and continue to believe that God cares and God will provide when your experience or current situation suggests otherwise?
The answer here is that we cannot limit God to our own experience. God is timeless or eternal, Creator of all things, and never grows weary or faint. God is beyond human comprehension (see this theme also in our Psalm 147:5 for today). They cannot see all and know all as God does. In spite of all things that seem to contradict it, God is Creator and Provider. God will act in God's own time and way. So the people must "wait for the Lord" and they surely will not wait in vain. The word for "wait" here is kawah. This is not the kind of waiting in which one sits with folded or wringing hands. It is a patient expectation and trust that God will act. It is a steadfast confidence in the steadfast love of God. This theme is a main one in the Psalm reading for today.
The promise is that God would lift them on "eagle's wings." The image is one of great strength and power. An eagle can dive down to the ground and lift up even large prey, soaring back to its nest. God, the maker of eagles and all things, is certainly able to swoop down to the people and lift them up, carrying them back to their homeland.
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
In the first 14 verses of this chapter, Paul has been talking about his rights as an apostle perhaps because some either were questioning his credentials or authority or were saying that he was somehow trying to enrich himself. Traveling preachers, teachers, and philosophers were pretty common in those days. They often charged or expected pay for their work. Some perhaps put Paul in with them.
Recall that Paul has been talking much about rights. He says that they are right in that there are no idols and that meat eaten that's been sacrificed to them does no harm. It is their right to eat it with a clear conscience but there is something more important than one's rights -- love. Love for others who would be hurt by their actions is to take precedence over their rights. That was easy to say when talking about the rights of others -- give them up for love. Now Paul says this is exactly what he has done. Paul plainly says it would be well within his rights to ask for some compensation, just as the law clearly teaches. So even if he did ask something of them, it would have been well and proper. But he has not asked anything materially of them and doesn't plan to. Indeed, his ground for "boasting," he says, is that he does not get any material gain from his preaching and would rather die than allow that to get in his way of sharing the gospel (see v. 15).
Paul goes on in verses 16ff to say that he might feel differently if he were doing this from his own initiative, that is, if it was just his "job" he'd gladly receive pay. What he does is not really his choice but his calling. He feels compelled or at least commissioned by Christ to do it. The work is not his but belongs to the One who called him. So too are the rewards, though they are not measured in material wealth but spiritual. His reward is seeing the power of the gospel do its work, as it had in them, as well as the joy he feels in having the honor of serving Christ.
Paul's only concern, as these verses show, is to share that gospel with everyone every chance he gets. Paul bares his soul here and gives us some insight into how he shared the gospel. He attempts to bring the gospel to everyone he meets, to share the gospel in language and ways that are effective in getting at least some of them to hear, understand, and accept it. He gets to know people, knows how they think, talk, live, for he spends time with them.
He is able, for example, to empathize with his fellow Jews because he too was where they are. He understands them, especially the struggle to keep the law and through it to become acceptable and righteous before God. Likewise, he identifies with the Gentiles who do not know the law and who worship many gods. He understands their world, how they think, how they feel, and the temptations they face. He is able to see the point of view of others. Through this is he is then able to speak in languages they understand when sharing the gospel. Because even though he is not under the law now, he is under the law of the love of Christ. This is what motivated him to identify with others.
In modern language this is called "relational evangelism," that is, sharing faith through relationships. A perfect example of this is found in verses 24-27, not included in our reading (covered next week), in which Paul uses sports terms. Remember he is writing to residents of Corinth, a city famous for its athletic events, and so he uses sports analogies to get his message across.
It must have been Paul's firm belief that the gospel itself always did this -- that is, came to people right where they were, how they lived, how they thought, just as Christ himself had come to him just as he was on the road to Damascus. The power of the gospel is such that it may come to them as they are but it does not leave them that way. It changes, transforms them. Paul was a living example of that.
Mark 1:29-39
This passage continues a typical day in the life of Jesus. It started with healing the man with the unclean spirit (vv. 21-28) and then takes him to the home of Andrew and Peter, where today's reading begins. Peter's mother-in-law was sick and Jesus heals her. When the Sabbath is over (sundown), people from all over Capernaum come to Jesus to be healed. He turns Peter's home into a Capernaum Clinic and heals all who come. The next morning he gets up early to go out and have a quiet time for prayer. He's hardly out there long. Peter and others come looking for him and apparently rebuke him for wasting time out there when he could be back in the village building on yesterday's successes. Jesus decides instead to move to other places so he can proclaim the gospel.
Several things stand out about these events here:
One is that the first miracle of Jesus in Mark is the healing of the man in the synagogue with the unclean spirit. The second is the healing of a woman -- Peter's mother-in-law. (She has a high fever and it may have been malaria, which was common in the area.) Jesus' healing is not restricted to one gender.
Second, it was this ministry of healing that has led to calling Jesus the "Great Physician." Everywhere Jesus went, he brought healing with him -- physical and spiritual healing.
Third, Peter has a mother-in-law. In other words, he is married. See 1 Corinthians 9:5 where Paul takes note of this as well. We do not know anything about her or the families of the other disciples. Tradition tells us that Peter watched his own family being executed before he himself was crucified.
Fourth, Jesus faces temptation here, the same kind in a way that Peter would once again present him after Jesus announces his impending crucifixion. Peter and the others come out seeking Jesus, chiding him for not being back in Capernaum and building on the success of the previous day. Jesus was getting popular and gaining a following. This was no time to be out wasting time in the wilderness, even if it was to pray. Jesus was being tempted here with success. He was being not so subtly told to be who everyone wanted him to be -- a popular healer, someone who could really gather a crowd and build on it.
Did this make Jesus feel good? People liked him and he was making a difference in their lives but he had been sent to announce that the kingdom was coming. People were not hearing or wanting that. As he says elsewhere to a crowd, "You do not follow me because you wish to hear of the love of God but hoping you will get a free meal." The people were being physically healed but not spiritually healed, not hearing and responding to his message. As is characteristic for Jesus, he reaches a decision after having prayed about it. He will move on and get back to proclaiming the coming kingdom of God, of which healing is only a part, not the whole.
Application
The people are languishing in exile, feeling forsaken by God. But then along comes this prophet who tells them God has not forgotten them. God was even then coming to deliver them, to bring them back home. They just had to "wait for the Lord" and the Lord would lift them back home on eagle's wings! God did just that but how tough it was to wait.
This is a good time to help those people in your congregation who are feeling the same way. Perhaps they have suffered for so long and wonder if God still cares for them. They may feel exhausted, weak, and ready to give up. The message here is that even though we cannot understand why things are as they are or happen as they do, we can know that God knows, God cares, and God will act for our good. The word to us is "wait for the Lord."
What does it mean to "wait for the Lord"? How do we do that? Isn't waiting something all of us hate to do? Or is this that kind of waiting? Is this being passive or is there an active aspect to this kind of waiting? Is it sitting and wringing our hands in anxiety or is it eager expectation, watching, anticipating the hand of God to touch us? These are the kinds of questions you can ask and look to today's lessons to help answer. Here are some of those insights:
First, Isaiah calls the people to trust in God and says that God, contrary to appearances, still knows them, cares for them, and will act on their behalf. To wait is to trust in God, to place our faith, our well-being each day, each moment into God's hands. It is to affirm and keep affirming, no matter the circumstances that we belong to God, God loves us, knows our needs, and will act to minister to us in God's own time and way. This steadfast love of God on which we can count is also a key theme in the Psalm 147 reading for today.
Second, the Psalm for today encourages us to "praise God" while we are waiting for the Lord. Yes, praise God even when all we sense is our need and God's absence. Praise is to remember the greatness and goodness of God. It is the raising of our eyes above the present circumstances to rest upon God, who God is, all that God has done for us. While we wait for God, we count all your blessings. That will keep us busy.
Third, Jesus, in going out to pray alone, is actively waiting, seeking God's direction for him. Should he stay and build on what's been done there or move on? He either gets his answer right away or knows intuitively what he should do. We may not get our answers that quickly but waiting in prayer will help us discern what to do.
This kind of faith, this praise, this confidence in the love of God and sharing our hearts with God in prayer -- all of these begin to lift us. The very act of faith, of lifting up our eyes takes our eyes off ourselves, off the pain of the moment and helps us focus on the One who created us and loves us, the One who Isaiah says sits enthroned still over all creation and who lifts us on eagle's wings.
An Alternative Application
Mark 1:29-39. In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed (v. 35).
One of the undergraduate colleges I attended was Atlantic Christian College (today it's Barton College) in Wilson, North Carolina. With the support of the faculty, the religion students built a small round building on the campus that was named "The Still Point." It was a simple building but on a quiet part of the campus. It had cushions for kneeling or lying down. It was an oasis of quietness and stillness in what was sometimes a desert of stress and strain. I often went to that quiet place to seek the still point in my own heart. Almost always I left refreshed and ready to take on whatever tasks presented themselves.
How very often Jesus sought out a quiet place like in today's text (see also Mark 6:30-31). It was the beginning of his ministry and he was already seeking that still point, that place where he could commune with God without distractions.
If Jesus needed to visit a quiet place frequently, how much more do you and I? But how can we find such places in our loud and busy world? A sermon that explored this might be of enormous help to those who feel overwhelmed by the noise pollution in our world.
I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Good things come to those who wait." Well, that guy lost his bumper. Someone stole it. I'm not sure if they wanted the bumper or just to get rid of that bumper sticker.
We hate to wait so much that it has led to all kinds of inventions -- microwaves, fast food, instant coffee, instant grits, instant just about everything.
"Wait." How I hated that word when I was younger (I'm still not fond of it). You asked for something or wanted to see something happen so badly only to hear someone say, "Let's wait and see."
No one likes to wait for anything. Why should we? Waiting is a waste of time and sometimes waiting can get unbearable.
The Israelites had been in Babylonian captivity for many years. For a long time they had waited for God to deliver them and they had almost given up hope. The wait was just too long. It seemed hopeless. It seemed God had forgotten them.
Isaiah 40:21-31
Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah are called "Second Isaiah." The whole tone of these passages seems to be a different time and situation from the first portion of the book. It's apparently just before the exiles are released and also covers the generation following. Unlike the notes of doom and gloom in the preceding chapters, this prophet is privileged to give a message of comfort and joy. God was coming to take them home and restore them (which is the message of 40:1-11 and much of Second Isaiah). In 40:12-31 we find a hymn/song of praise to God as Creator of the universe. Today's reading gives us several verses of that hymn.
You get the feeling from reading this passage, especially if you begin with verse 18, that the prophet is in a spirited debate. The subject of the debate seems to be that some of the people are thinking or arguing that God is only one god among many and not the most powerful one at that! After all, if Babylon had conquered them, did this not also mean that the gods of Babylon were more powerful than their God?
This, however, went against everything that they had been taught. So the prophet refers to their traditions (v. 21). They were ignoring or forgetting the very fundamentals of their faith.
What was it that they had been taught from the beginning? That God sits sovereign over all creation as its Creator. God was the one who stretched out the heavens like a tent (v. 22). To God, everyone is as an insect in terms of might, even mighty princes, even the princes and leaders of the Babylonians, as God was about to show through the release of the people from exile (v. 23). As powerful and many as they appear, they are but stubble or dried grass that is blown away by one blast from God's nostrils (v. 24). Indeed, God has no equal (v. 25). Pointing to the heavens, perhaps the stars, which were seen as deities by the Babylonians, Second Isaiah reminds them that God is the one who made them all and that God, not these astral creations, controls the course of history.
The people had been languishing in exile for decades. They began to lose hope of ever returning home. In fact, they began to doubt that God could or would do this. It is as if they are, in fact, bringing a kind of lawsuit against God, claiming that God had not or could not fulfill the covenant promises made way back to Abraham.
Here's how they felt: "My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God" (v. 27). In other words, God had forsaken or forgotten them. Indeed, God had turned his back on them! What is being questioned is not so much God's power as God's will or love for them. It was the same feeling that many Jews expressed during and after the Holocaust. How does one maintain faith in God and continue to believe that God cares and God will provide when your experience or current situation suggests otherwise?
The answer here is that we cannot limit God to our own experience. God is timeless or eternal, Creator of all things, and never grows weary or faint. God is beyond human comprehension (see this theme also in our Psalm 147:5 for today). They cannot see all and know all as God does. In spite of all things that seem to contradict it, God is Creator and Provider. God will act in God's own time and way. So the people must "wait for the Lord" and they surely will not wait in vain. The word for "wait" here is kawah. This is not the kind of waiting in which one sits with folded or wringing hands. It is a patient expectation and trust that God will act. It is a steadfast confidence in the steadfast love of God. This theme is a main one in the Psalm reading for today.
The promise is that God would lift them on "eagle's wings." The image is one of great strength and power. An eagle can dive down to the ground and lift up even large prey, soaring back to its nest. God, the maker of eagles and all things, is certainly able to swoop down to the people and lift them up, carrying them back to their homeland.
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
In the first 14 verses of this chapter, Paul has been talking about his rights as an apostle perhaps because some either were questioning his credentials or authority or were saying that he was somehow trying to enrich himself. Traveling preachers, teachers, and philosophers were pretty common in those days. They often charged or expected pay for their work. Some perhaps put Paul in with them.
Recall that Paul has been talking much about rights. He says that they are right in that there are no idols and that meat eaten that's been sacrificed to them does no harm. It is their right to eat it with a clear conscience but there is something more important than one's rights -- love. Love for others who would be hurt by their actions is to take precedence over their rights. That was easy to say when talking about the rights of others -- give them up for love. Now Paul says this is exactly what he has done. Paul plainly says it would be well within his rights to ask for some compensation, just as the law clearly teaches. So even if he did ask something of them, it would have been well and proper. But he has not asked anything materially of them and doesn't plan to. Indeed, his ground for "boasting," he says, is that he does not get any material gain from his preaching and would rather die than allow that to get in his way of sharing the gospel (see v. 15).
Paul goes on in verses 16ff to say that he might feel differently if he were doing this from his own initiative, that is, if it was just his "job" he'd gladly receive pay. What he does is not really his choice but his calling. He feels compelled or at least commissioned by Christ to do it. The work is not his but belongs to the One who called him. So too are the rewards, though they are not measured in material wealth but spiritual. His reward is seeing the power of the gospel do its work, as it had in them, as well as the joy he feels in having the honor of serving Christ.
Paul's only concern, as these verses show, is to share that gospel with everyone every chance he gets. Paul bares his soul here and gives us some insight into how he shared the gospel. He attempts to bring the gospel to everyone he meets, to share the gospel in language and ways that are effective in getting at least some of them to hear, understand, and accept it. He gets to know people, knows how they think, talk, live, for he spends time with them.
He is able, for example, to empathize with his fellow Jews because he too was where they are. He understands them, especially the struggle to keep the law and through it to become acceptable and righteous before God. Likewise, he identifies with the Gentiles who do not know the law and who worship many gods. He understands their world, how they think, how they feel, and the temptations they face. He is able to see the point of view of others. Through this is he is then able to speak in languages they understand when sharing the gospel. Because even though he is not under the law now, he is under the law of the love of Christ. This is what motivated him to identify with others.
In modern language this is called "relational evangelism," that is, sharing faith through relationships. A perfect example of this is found in verses 24-27, not included in our reading (covered next week), in which Paul uses sports terms. Remember he is writing to residents of Corinth, a city famous for its athletic events, and so he uses sports analogies to get his message across.
It must have been Paul's firm belief that the gospel itself always did this -- that is, came to people right where they were, how they lived, how they thought, just as Christ himself had come to him just as he was on the road to Damascus. The power of the gospel is such that it may come to them as they are but it does not leave them that way. It changes, transforms them. Paul was a living example of that.
Mark 1:29-39
This passage continues a typical day in the life of Jesus. It started with healing the man with the unclean spirit (vv. 21-28) and then takes him to the home of Andrew and Peter, where today's reading begins. Peter's mother-in-law was sick and Jesus heals her. When the Sabbath is over (sundown), people from all over Capernaum come to Jesus to be healed. He turns Peter's home into a Capernaum Clinic and heals all who come. The next morning he gets up early to go out and have a quiet time for prayer. He's hardly out there long. Peter and others come looking for him and apparently rebuke him for wasting time out there when he could be back in the village building on yesterday's successes. Jesus decides instead to move to other places so he can proclaim the gospel.
Several things stand out about these events here:
One is that the first miracle of Jesus in Mark is the healing of the man in the synagogue with the unclean spirit. The second is the healing of a woman -- Peter's mother-in-law. (She has a high fever and it may have been malaria, which was common in the area.) Jesus' healing is not restricted to one gender.
Second, it was this ministry of healing that has led to calling Jesus the "Great Physician." Everywhere Jesus went, he brought healing with him -- physical and spiritual healing.
Third, Peter has a mother-in-law. In other words, he is married. See 1 Corinthians 9:5 where Paul takes note of this as well. We do not know anything about her or the families of the other disciples. Tradition tells us that Peter watched his own family being executed before he himself was crucified.
Fourth, Jesus faces temptation here, the same kind in a way that Peter would once again present him after Jesus announces his impending crucifixion. Peter and the others come out seeking Jesus, chiding him for not being back in Capernaum and building on the success of the previous day. Jesus was getting popular and gaining a following. This was no time to be out wasting time in the wilderness, even if it was to pray. Jesus was being tempted here with success. He was being not so subtly told to be who everyone wanted him to be -- a popular healer, someone who could really gather a crowd and build on it.
Did this make Jesus feel good? People liked him and he was making a difference in their lives but he had been sent to announce that the kingdom was coming. People were not hearing or wanting that. As he says elsewhere to a crowd, "You do not follow me because you wish to hear of the love of God but hoping you will get a free meal." The people were being physically healed but not spiritually healed, not hearing and responding to his message. As is characteristic for Jesus, he reaches a decision after having prayed about it. He will move on and get back to proclaiming the coming kingdom of God, of which healing is only a part, not the whole.
Application
The people are languishing in exile, feeling forsaken by God. But then along comes this prophet who tells them God has not forgotten them. God was even then coming to deliver them, to bring them back home. They just had to "wait for the Lord" and the Lord would lift them back home on eagle's wings! God did just that but how tough it was to wait.
This is a good time to help those people in your congregation who are feeling the same way. Perhaps they have suffered for so long and wonder if God still cares for them. They may feel exhausted, weak, and ready to give up. The message here is that even though we cannot understand why things are as they are or happen as they do, we can know that God knows, God cares, and God will act for our good. The word to us is "wait for the Lord."
What does it mean to "wait for the Lord"? How do we do that? Isn't waiting something all of us hate to do? Or is this that kind of waiting? Is this being passive or is there an active aspect to this kind of waiting? Is it sitting and wringing our hands in anxiety or is it eager expectation, watching, anticipating the hand of God to touch us? These are the kinds of questions you can ask and look to today's lessons to help answer. Here are some of those insights:
First, Isaiah calls the people to trust in God and says that God, contrary to appearances, still knows them, cares for them, and will act on their behalf. To wait is to trust in God, to place our faith, our well-being each day, each moment into God's hands. It is to affirm and keep affirming, no matter the circumstances that we belong to God, God loves us, knows our needs, and will act to minister to us in God's own time and way. This steadfast love of God on which we can count is also a key theme in the Psalm 147 reading for today.
Second, the Psalm for today encourages us to "praise God" while we are waiting for the Lord. Yes, praise God even when all we sense is our need and God's absence. Praise is to remember the greatness and goodness of God. It is the raising of our eyes above the present circumstances to rest upon God, who God is, all that God has done for us. While we wait for God, we count all your blessings. That will keep us busy.
Third, Jesus, in going out to pray alone, is actively waiting, seeking God's direction for him. Should he stay and build on what's been done there or move on? He either gets his answer right away or knows intuitively what he should do. We may not get our answers that quickly but waiting in prayer will help us discern what to do.
This kind of faith, this praise, this confidence in the love of God and sharing our hearts with God in prayer -- all of these begin to lift us. The very act of faith, of lifting up our eyes takes our eyes off ourselves, off the pain of the moment and helps us focus on the One who created us and loves us, the One who Isaiah says sits enthroned still over all creation and who lifts us on eagle's wings.
An Alternative Application
Mark 1:29-39. In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed (v. 35).
One of the undergraduate colleges I attended was Atlantic Christian College (today it's Barton College) in Wilson, North Carolina. With the support of the faculty, the religion students built a small round building on the campus that was named "The Still Point." It was a simple building but on a quiet part of the campus. It had cushions for kneeling or lying down. It was an oasis of quietness and stillness in what was sometimes a desert of stress and strain. I often went to that quiet place to seek the still point in my own heart. Almost always I left refreshed and ready to take on whatever tasks presented themselves.
How very often Jesus sought out a quiet place like in today's text (see also Mark 6:30-31). It was the beginning of his ministry and he was already seeking that still point, that place where he could commune with God without distractions.
If Jesus needed to visit a quiet place frequently, how much more do you and I? But how can we find such places in our loud and busy world? A sermon that explored this might be of enormous help to those who feel overwhelmed by the noise pollution in our world.
