The weight of waiting.
And all the hoping is the hardest part.
What do you do with all the weight and ache of your wait?
Waiting for the impossible, for the heavy story to finally turn a page…. for the hardly-dared-whispered dream to come true, for the miraculous reconciliation and the relief of an outstretched olive branch.
Waiting for that text, a call, a ring, a baby, a sign, any sign, that the tides are actually turning.
Waiting for hope to just finally walk through your front door, cup your face and say the waiting’s all over and the relief of all the rejoicing gets to now really begin.
So when the pastor read it to a handful of us yesterday, in the middle of the first week of our Advent’s waiting, I’m not sure why I was surprised that I brimmed…
“Now there was a man … whose name was Simeon, waiting for the consolation of Israel…” (Luke 2)
Now here we all are too … waiting for the relief of any real comfort, some soul consolation, when this story we never wanted goes on and on and…
Advent is not about some sentimental waiting; Advent resonates with all us waiting in a dark that seems to have no end. How long has Simeon been waiting — a year or two — or more? A decade? Longer?
How long do you have to live with the “not yet” – and still yet keep going?
“While we wait for things to change – real change is being built in us. “
What do you do with all the weight and ache of your wait?
And that’s when I though how too, just as we begin this season of wait, that all around this spinning ole world, we all join as the church reading it together, in the yearly pattern of Scripture readings, always on the very first Sunday of Advent, those orienting words as we await the coming again of Christ:
“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man…” (Matt. 24:37)
That’s what I keep thinking of, all this first week of Advent, as we wait for His coming and His coming again, what does that mean: “As it was in the days of Noah… so it will be…”
And here is, Noah, the man whose very name means comfort, consolation (Gen. 5:29), enduring the long wait for what he can’t yet see, enduring more than a hundred years of mocking assaults, while he works and watches and painfully waits, while he hauls plank after plank, to hammer together an ark of hope.
And it strikes me: Is that what we do while we wait for some coming comfort and consolation?
As the impossible looms over us, as nothing seems to change, as people kinda mock, as the days drag on and the darkness deepens, as all our wild hoping against hope makes us a laughing stock – all the Great Waiters on a Great God are called to keep on building our arks of faith.
While we hope against hope – we become people who learn to lean the whole weight of our lives up against the steadiness of God.
While we wait, we take the weight of all our ache, and build an ark of Hope.
The weight of our wait begs for us to take it all and hammer out an ark of Hope.
Because…
While we wait for things to change – real change is being built in us.
While we hope against hope – we become people who learn to lean the whole weight of our lives up against the steadiness of God.
All waiting is doing the work of a waiter: it’s serving us… in this holy work of building a better kind of person.
In the days of Noah, everyone only thought of eating and drinking and whatever made them feel good, all the instant gratification, no waiting ever at all – on anything or anyone. Everyone wanted everything that was easy to consume – no one wanted to wait on anything still to come.
Everyone wanted to live on the quick and easy of the horizontal – rather than live into the holy of the vertical, and the wait that is sacramental.
All waiting is doing the work of a waiter: it’s serving us… in this holy work of building a better kind of person.
In the days of Noah – in the midst of all that the wandering people were getting wrong – what was even more than what they were doing, was also the real wrong of what they weren’t doing: No one was building their ark of Hope.
No one was building their hope in God alone, their hope in the unlikely, unexpected, upside ways of God, their hope in the miraculous ways God moves, especially when it looks like nothing at all is moving.
But like Simeon, Noah dares to trust, dares to take God at His Word, dares to keep preparing every single day for more than 120 years of days, even though no one has ever even seen rain, dares to suffer the weight of the wait – dares to suffer the weight of hope.
Luther even went so far as to say that Noah was “the greatest of all martyrs… For is it not much easier to be delivered… from all suffering in a single hour,” than to live for endless days, years, decades, under the weight of dark, and godlessness, and all kinds of fiercely defiant hopefulness? (Luther, Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II)
“Hope stretches us tight through the dark and ties us to the light. Hope isn’t merely a feeling – it’s a long obedience in the direction of the light.“
Noah’s waiting hope goes on even after the rains keep coming, even after the ark’s long afloat, he has to wait, the Hebrew word, “YAKAL,” for the flood waters to recede.
The other Hebrew word for wait – is QAVAH – meaning to wait with hope – to literally be stretched, to be twisted, bound – like a cord.
Waiting with Hope stretches us tight through the dark and ties us to the light. Hope isn’t merely a feeling – it’s a long obedience in the direction of the light.
Hope is a rope – that stretches through the dark and hangs our everything on Him.
In the tension of long waiting – our heart is bound around Hope Himself. Hope isn’t some cliche idea, it’s a steady commitment to cling to Someone. Hope binds us to God.
Hope is a rope – that stretches through the dark and hangs our everything on Him.
In the misery of waiting, the invitation is to tie yourself to the mystery of God.
While we wait – we come face-to-face with our only Hope Himself.
Maybe that’s part the ache of what I was feeling in my chest:
While we wait and hope – we detach from more of the idols that have held us too long in heavy bondage, and finally find our secure attachment in the only One who can carry the weight of all our hopes.
Is that why Advent begins with pointing to the days of Noah?
Who dares to be one of the new Noahs, building in their inner heart, their own ark of Hope?
Because the reality for all of us is: There are floods and dark days coming.
“In the tension of long waiting – our heart is bound around Hope Himself. Hope isn’t some cliche idea, it’s a steady commitment to cling to Someone. Hope binds us to God. “
There are days that are going to get far harder before anything gets at all better.
For all our people, for all the generations to come, for all our children and grand-children and great-grandchildren, for all the coming days that will be like the days of Noah, as we wait for the second Advent, and work and watch and wait for the second coming of the Son of Man:
Who dares to have the faith to build a safe ark of hope?
The pastor said that too, this first week of Advent, to the half dozen of us sitting there midweek, but he said it not about Noah, but about Simeon, who was watching and waiting for perhaps decades and decades, for the coming comfort of the Christ:
“Your waiting and hope and faith is never just for you – it’s for the consolation of all the future generations.” The Pastor’s speaking slowly, so we don’t miss it.
And I’m brushing back what’s brimming, thinking not only of Simeon’s watchful waiting, but also of Noah’s too: “While we wait, we take the weight of all our ache, and build an ark of Hope. Build an ark. Build an ark. Build an ark.”
Your ark of hope isn’t just for you – your ark of hope is a rescue for all you love in the midst of all the coming hard.
One plank of fierce, trusting hope after another… one plank of begging prayer after prayer…. one plank of memorized verse upon verse… one plank after another, of resolute courage, focused attention, disciplined intentionality, and brave stand of allegiance, day after day, to trust God’s way and God’s timing and God’s coming Kingdom and eternal reign.
“Simeon kept coming, long year after long year, to the temple, looking for the consolation of the people, looking for the coming Messiah,” And then the Pastor then points to the beams holding up the old church over the heads of the half dozen of us.
“Your ark of hope isn’t just for you – your ark of hope is a rescue for all you love in the midst of all the coming hard. “
“Just think now how all kinds of cathedrals stand as a testament to that same kind of long faith, this same kind of long hope, that has faith in the long timelines of God – because how long does it take to build a cathedral? 800 years of building, more?”
And the liquid ache of all kinds of my waiting and hoping slips down my cheek, and I brush it back with the back of my hand.
“Your waiting and your hope and your faith in the coming consolation of Christ – is never just for you. Your faith in the coming Christ is always too about the consolation for all the coming generations.”
And I take a deep breath and nod my amen.
No matter how long it takes, no matter how impossible it seems, no matter how dark it gets, no matter how it seems like nothing’s changing fast enough:
Noah, hope against hope, endured the weight of waiting, for the comfort of rescue.
Simeon, hope against hope, endured the weight of waiting, for the comfort of the Rescuer Himself.
And when I walk out of the old steepled church, midweek the first week of Advent, and back out into the busy holiday streets, I still feel the weight of all kinds of waiting.
This is the hardest part.
Yet I can feel it too:
There is a sure resiliency and buoyancy to Hope, and there’s this rising, holy work of building an ark.
And all down the Christmas lit streets, the snow falls lightly, a quiet blanket of comfort.
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