I hate to wait. That was a commercial ad campaign some years ago. I don’t remember what it was for, but I remember the tag line. I hate to wait. Because I do. We do. Waiting is not something we value in our instant gratification culture. Waiting is a sign that something has gone wrong. An indicator that there is a foul up in the works somewhere. How many times have you told the story of the time you were in your airplane, ready to go off to some exotic locale, only to find yourself stuck on the runway for hours on end, while the re-circulated air began to smell like a group of people who hate to wait? How many times have you been reminded of the time you sat on the interstate trying to get somewhere and already late while the traffic stretched on over the horizon into infinity and only moved by inches at a time? How many times have you calculated the time it would take to abandon the useless vehicle and walk to your destination, knowing that it would still be faster to stay where you were, but you almost did it anyway, because you hate to wait?
Too many. You snarl about fast food that comes too slowly. You gripe about meetings that serve no useful purpose and also drag on and on into infinity. You wonder when or if the preacher is ever going to get to the point, because you were hoping for one of those rare occasions when you could get out a little early, but that hope died in the drone of a voice that seems to think there is all the time in the world. I hate to wait.
Yet we do. All the time. Way too often. If only the world were run better, run like I would do it. Why put in eleventy-seven check out lanes and only open two? And staff them with three toed sloths who get nose bleed if they go too fast. Why do some people stare at the menu over their heads as though they forgot how to read English and that a burger and fries seems beyond their pronunciation capabilities. And I know it says 35 in town, but no one really expects you to drive 35! Surely everyone knows that!? I hate to wait.
Wait. One of those four letter words that we don’t like to use in mixed company. Wait. We can’t even say it without a sneer, without an exasperated sigh, without an explosion of sudden anger and frustration. Wait! Why in the world should we want to wait? Ask a kid on the threshold of Christmas if they think waiting is a good thing. Ask a bride on the night before her wedding. Ask a soldier who has received orders for home. Ask a dog who hears the garage door - the correct garage door - begin to go up. Do you enjoy the wait? Is that even possible?
Isaiah 40:28-31 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 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.
Isaiah says yes. Yes it is possible to enjoy the wait, he says. Not only enjoy, but be sustained by. Be strengthened by. It is in the waiting that we get our wings, he says. In the waiting we live fully, we live for the long haul, we live in today for tomorrow and not the tomorrow of the next sunrise, but the tomorrow of the next Son rise. To live is to wait, and to wait is to live. That’s what Isaiah says.
And then maybe he’s just a crazy old coot who has had one too many late night conversations with God.
Chapter 40 is a transition chapter in the book of Isaiah. One of the longest prophetic books in the whole bible, Isaiah has more mood shifts than ... well, than is healthy. Angry one moment, full of rage at the way the world is, he is the soul of poetic comfort and hope in the next. Wagging his bony prophetic finger at all of us who dare to think for ourselves once in a while, he breathes fire upon our self-centered, self-seeking ways. And just when he seems ready to squash our hopes and dreams he becomes the kind-hearted grandfather who wants to gather us up and bring us home. He promises a life of peace and transformation seemingly moments after he pronounces doom upon the face of the earth.
It’s no wonder that many, if not most biblical scholars believe there was more than one Isaiah. More because of the time span represented in the book than the bi-polar nature of the prophet himself. So, in chapter 40 we are moving from “First” Isaiah into “Second” Isaiah. First Isaiah was written when the nation of Israel was enjoying a brief time of relative peace and prosperity. Things were going so well that many of the people and certainly most of the leaders thought that they were responsible for how well things were going. They forgot Who got them there. They forgot Whose they were. They forgot that they were a grumbling bunch of whiners in the desert until they were made into the People of God, strong and good and hospitable. The laws for treating the stranger in their midst were some of the most advanced in the world at that time. The welcome they were to extend marked them as a unique people with an outward focus, more concerned about the wounds of the stranger than the comforts of the citizen. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” That was their identity, even if the words hadn’t been carved into stone. Until the living got easier. Until they began to settle into routines of comfort and prosperity. And they began to worry about borders. They worried about those who lived differently. They worried about the very stranger their law told them to love.
For forty chapters Isaiah has warned them, shouted at them, told them to straighten up. But they didn’t listen. And the worst came to be. An enemy they thought was a friend came and swept them away. Their precious Jerusalem was overrun, families killed or carted off, walls broken down, neighborhoods abandoned, wild animals roamed the streets keeping the few survivors running for their lives. And they were tired. They were afraid. They began to despair, to weep for what they lost, to fear for what might be next. And Isaiah changed his tune. Sang them a different song.
God is faithful, he sang to them in their weariness. God is stronger than the enemy you see, than the brokenness you harbor within. God will bring you home. Wait, he intoned. Wait, he whispered. Wait on the Lord.
Wait? We hate to wait. Fix it, fix it now. Heal us, feed us, save us, comfort us, love us, now. OK, God sings through Isaiah’s voice. OK, wait. Why wait? We hate to ... I know, God interrupts. I know, but that is because you don’t understand waiting. This isn't the impatient, you've got better things to do tapping of the toe and drumming of the fingers. That’s not waiting. That’s a toddler’s tantrum. No, wait, God says, by living. Living every day in hope. Living every moment with a vision of a day when the tears are gone and the fear is erased. Hold that hope in front of you and lean into the vision. Begin to walk as though you were already there. As though you were brave enough to love. As though you knew how to serve. As though you were ready to extend a hand and lift up the fallen - not because it is a good thing, but because it is the only thing. It is who you are, and who you are becoming. We don’t wait, God says and Isaiah sings, by sitting still, but by running the race, putting one foot in front of the other. Working to exhaustion and then doing even more. We don’t wait on the ground, we wait by soaring on the wings of love and hope. We wait by moving, by doing, by being.
But, you think, I’m not there yet. Precisely.
But, you think, I’m not there yet. Precisely.
Wait for it.
Shalom,
Derek
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