Waiting

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. The anticipation of Christmas. Those last few weeks of any school year. We all wait, and these examples are relatively pleasant ones, even if the underlying tension can drive us a bit batty. But then there are other times when we wait that cause less battiness and more irritation: the line at the grocery store, traffic, and waiting for someone to answer the customer service line. Perhaps this irritation is a reflection of the society in which we live: where dinner can be microwaved in minutes, and messages are Instant, and news from around the world is both immediate and ubiquitous.

But perhaps our abhorrence of waiting reflects a deeper, spiritual reality. When we are irritated in traffic, it’s because our destination is better than our current location (stuck in traffic). When we gripe about customer service, it’s because something is wrong and we want it fixed.

But this life is all about waiting. Job tells God he is waiting “until my change comes” (Job 14: 13-17). Job lost everything in a moment and now he has nothing except unhelpful friends and a contentious wife. He was waiting for it all to change. Nowhere does it say Job expected God to restore it all in this life, though. God did restore it all, tenfold, but at the time, Job didn’t know that. He was expecting and waiting for restoration in the next life.

Paul talks about this tension of waiting in Romans 8: 18-25. We endure the troubles of this present life, knowing the glory we will have THEN is infinitely better than the troubles we have NOW.

Even when God promises something will happen in this life, sometimes we still have to wait. David was anointed king long before he became king, and in the interim he was hunted and on the run. Scripture tells us he endured this waiting with courage and integrity.

As I looked up Scripture passages that describe waiting, I came across something unexpected. At least for me; it had never occurred to me before:

“For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said,

‘In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.’

But you were not willing…

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,

And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.” Isaiah 30: 15 – 18

What kind of tension must that be? God is waiting for us to say, “I’m guilty. I did it,” so that He can say, “I already paid the penalty, and I forgive you.”

It reminds me of the movie Armageddon, a Bruce Willis movie from a long time ago. The mid-nineties, maybe? An asteroid is hurtling on a collision course with earth, and the only ones who can save us are a misfit crew of deep sea oil drillers who are willing to fly into outer space to drill a hole in the asteroid and blow it up with a nuclear warhead. Of course, there are challenges along the way which raise the tension of the story bit by bit., until the asteroid is almost at the point where “anything past this line means complete annihilation of earth.” A choice must be made: someone needs to stay on the asteroid to push the button manually because the remote control is broken. Bruce Willis’s character Harry is the one to stay. (Of coourse, this storyline is all very predictable, but this post is not a movie review!)

Everyone else piles into the space shuttle and takes off. Everyone on earth is watching the TV screens with bated breath. As a mini meteor shower pummels Harry and he is knocked unconscious, the tension is rising still more. He has to push the button!

And the viewer, at least this viewer, is on the edge of her seat cheering him on: Push the button, Harry, push the button. And the other crew members flying away are urging him: Push the button. And the scientists in the NASA control room are silently saying: Come on, come on.

Then the camera pans to Liv Tyler, who plays Harry’s daughter. She is weeping. Because as the world is urging this man to commit suicide so that we may live, she knows the moment he pushes that button, she loses her daddy. And then the camera pans back to Harry on the asteroid, barely conscious, reaching for the button, urging himself on: I have to push the button. In that split second, his “life” flashes before his eyes. The asteroid explodes. The earth is saved. His daughter weeps.

Was Jesus’s experience at the Last Supper like that? Knowing what is coming, knowing it will be as close to hell on earth as it gets, knowing He will be separated from the Father so that the Father and the rest of humanity can have a restored relationship. Knowing He has to, in essence, push the button.

As Jesus breathed His last breath, He gave up His Spirit and said, “It is finished.” The relationship is restored; we don’t have to wait for that anymore. Now we are only waiting for creation itself to be restored.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” Romans 8: 18-25

And so, we wait.