Have you ever felt that a driver was being really slow in pulling out of a parking space that you were waiting for? It turns out your imagination may not be playing tricks on you. A recent study of 400 drivers in a shopping mall found that drivers actually did take longer to pull out of a space if someone was waiting than if nobody was waiting there to claim the space. On average, if nobody was waiting for the space, drivers took 32.2 seconds to pull out of a spot after opening a car door. If someone was waiting, drivers took about 39 seconds. And woe to the person who honks to hurry a driver: drivers took 43 seconds to pull out of a space when the waiting driver honked![1]

Why do people do this? Who knows? 

Why do we notice this? Because nobody likes to wait!  Waiting is hard. And it’s no fun. 

The Book of Jeremiah was written to preserve the messages that this reluctant prophet gave to the people of Judah; warning them of a coming invasion by the Babylonian nation. They were not only coming, but God said, they were going to overrun the people of Israel. Unlike the last invasion, this time Jerusalem was going to fall, and her people were going to be taken wholesale into captivity. It was a tough assignment for this young preacher, and no wonder that he was called the ‘weeping prophet’. 

In some of the darkest days of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, Jeremiah was asked by God to do something totally unexpected; something that seemed to go completely against the messages that he had been preaching. God said, “Go out and buy a piece of property—complete with witnesses, a deed, and money exchanged” (Jer. 32:6–15). This was an act that seemed to make no sense at all.  Jeremiah has been preaching “We’re going to be defeated, we’re going to be taken away.” Who in their right mind would invest in property at a time like this? 

In 70 years, God reminds Jeremiah, the captive people would be set free, and they would return to the land. They would rebuild homes and replant the vineyards. Jeremiah's purchase of land was meant to provide a beacon of hope during the long years of captivity.  A sign of hope as they waited for God’s deliverance. 

Sometimes that’s all we have. Signs… hints… hope. 

No one likes to wait – but as we look back at the process of growing up in our faith, we might just realize that some of the most important things that have ever happened to us, happened not in periods of great activity and flurries of action, but in the times in between - times of waiting. 

Richard Hendrix says that “Second only to suffering, waiting may be the greatest teacher and trainer in godliness, maturity, and genuine spirituality most of us ever encounter.”[2] I think he is correct. And, perhaps a reason for that is that waiting, just by definition, forces us to rely on faith.

The classic definition of faith from the book of Hebrews says that  “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”.  What we do not see, yet hope for would be things that we are waiting for.  So, we could say that faith is the ‘thing’ that enables us to wait with patience and perseverance. And the longer, and more intentional, our waiting is, the stronger our faith can become.

Because God works in us in that process.

I read recently that when smelting and forging various metals the cooling process is just as important as the heating. Changes take place in the metals during the cool-down period. So, if the cool-down is too fast, it can cause microscopic cracks in the metal that will inevitably lead to fatigue—and ultimately to disaster.  So there are very carefully regulated processes of cooling baths, and times for the metal to just ‘sit’ until it is ready. 

We, go through cool-down periods, too. Spiritually speaking, we spend most of our time waiting. Waiting for healing. Waiting for direction. Waiting for understanding. Waiting for Christ’s return.

And these are important times for us. The Great Refiner is working to build qualities into our lives that will make us effective for the ultimate use he has in mind for us. Waiting is an inescapable part of the process.

Perhaps of all the days in the Liturgical Calendar, this day, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter best represents the reality of our lives.

Philip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew writes of this:

The other two days have earned names on the church calendar: Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Yet in a real sense we live on Saturday, the day with no name. What the disciples experienced in small scale—three days in grief over one man who had died on a cross—we now live through on cosmic scale. Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. Can we trust that God can make something holy and beautiful and good out of a world that includes Bosnia and Rwanda [Iraq and Darfur and Afghanistan] and inner-city ghettos and jammed prisons in the richest nation on earth? It's Saturday on planet earth. Will Sunday ever come?

That dark, Golgothan Friday can only be called Good because of what happened on Easter Sunday, a day which gives a tantalizing clue to the riddle of the universe. Easter opened up a crack in a universe winding down toward entropy and decay, sealing the promise that someday God will enlarge the miracle of Easter to cosmic scale.

It is a good thing to remember that in the cosmic drama, we live out our days on Saturday, the in-between day with no name. I know a woman whose grandmother lies buried under 150 year old live oak trees in the cemetery of an Episcopal church in rural Louisiana. In accordance with the grandmother's instructions, only one word is carved on the tombstone: "Waiting." 

Though Jesus cast a vision for a better kingdom now and in the future, as long as it is Saturday, the fulfillment of that vision still awaits until Sunday dawns.[3]

Sometimes waiting is easier than other times. Like tonight – we are sitting here with the drama of Good Friday on our minds, but looking at the beautiful Easter flowers, and thinking about the Triumphant services that we know are going to take place in this very place tomorrow morning. So, we can find ourselves saying ‘yep… waiting is good. It’s OK’. No problem!

But we might be missing the obvious – waiting for God to act can be a very uncomfortable thing.  On Friday afternoon (yesterday) I attended most of the Community Service at Trinity Episcopal Church. They’ve been doing the ‘Seven Last Words’ of Jesus from the Cross there for many years. With clergy from various churches taking part, and preaching each word.

And I was listening to all these sermons…and there were some good thoughts being shared, some good illustrations. Everyone had obviously prepared carefully and it was a good service. And then for the fifth word, HeyYoung came to the pulpit. It’s really hard to describe what happened. Her word was “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, the cry of abandonment from Jesus.

This is not a knock on the rest of preachers, not at all. But something happened there on Friday in her message that didn’t happen in the others; if the other messages were ‘songs’, HeyYoung’s was a scream, a gut wrenching cry to God of “how long?”  It was a hard message to hear – and I say that with admiration. It was raw and full of pain – her pain, the pain of the world, the cries of the suffering people all around us. It made us – forced us – to get out of this bubble, in this beautiful church with beautiful music, and good preaching; it forced us to look outside and inside and remember who we are and where we really were. 

And I thought, “This is someone who understands what Saturday is about”. 

Waiting is not easy because it means we still have to hold on to our pain, with the promise that it will someday be taken from us. Just not yet.  No yet. Waiting is not easy because we have to settle again and again for ‘incompletes’… incomplete relationships, incomplete lives, incomplete hope.  We wait. And we wait.  It’s still Saturday.

Oh, we truly believe that Sunday is on the way – with all that it stands for, and all that we so desperately need and want to see. Our hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus, nothing less. But still, we are waiting.  It’s not over yet.

David ends Psalm 27 with some good advice: an encouragement to wait.  This king, this strong man, this warrior of God calls us to “Wait patiently for the Lord. Be strong and courageous… and wait.”  On this very long Saturday, may the Lord teach us to do just that.  Let’s pray:

God
Grant me to be
silent before you--
that I may hear you;
at rest in you--
that you may work in me;
open to you--
that you may enter;
empty before you--
that you may fill me.
Let me be still
And know you are my God.
Amen.[4]