Friday, December 2, 2022
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Watching Jesus pray, watching Jesus wait
I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted and wait for the Lord.
I wait better when I have what I need. If I’m hungry I get restless. If I’m cold I resent the air around me. And when I’m sick, well, I am not patient. I am, as they say, a terrible “patient.”
Mary heard Gabriel, and she saw him. Unlike Job (who had only heard of God), she had a face-to-face, a one-on-one. She heard the angel out and asked him one question. “How can this be, sir?”
He answered. Unlike the habit of her soon-to-be adult son, he did not ask her a question in return. And she responded with just a few simple syllables.
Let it be done unto me according to thy word.
And then she, like every mother-to-be before and after her, began to wait. Impatiently on some days, and patiently on others.
Jesus spoke to the blind men in much the same words as Mary spoke to Gabriel. When they begged him for his touch and healing, in the words we have adapted to become the Jesus Prayer, Jesus loved them.
Son of David, have pity on us!
Do you believe that I can do this?
Jesus asked them a single question, and quietly, they answered.
Yes, Lord.
And then he touched their eyes and spoke. I can imagine his joy as God-man, knowing Mary’s response to Gabriel:
Let it be done unto you according to your faith.
And their eyes, they were opened. As are mine, when I cry out to Jesus, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Waiting for their healing was over for the blind men. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary’s waiting for her baby was over. Much waiting awaited all of them, however. When they, like all of us, were in need, they waited to be satisfied.
So will I wait patiently? Will I ask God for the patience only he can give? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience … Against such things there is no law. Of course not, but to wait for such things when I think I can manage them myself, that is difficult.
Behold, our Lord shall come with power; he will enlighten the eyes of his servants … Jesus warned them sternly not to speak of their healing. But they went out and spread word of him throughout all that land.
And all that land looked high and low, then, for Jesus and his touch. Everyone has a sick relative, or is sick himself. Everyone has a hungry uncle, or is hungry herself. Let’s find Jesus, and he will give us everything we need.
But Jesus eluded them, found his way to mountaintops to pray, and moved back into the crowds only when his Father told him to. He knew the promises of Isaiah 29 by heart, and he knew his Father was true to those promises.
Thus saith the Lord, “In a very little while …”
On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book. And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The lowly will ever find joy in the Lord, and the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
And the promises go on. But suddenly I am reminded that with the Lord, a thousand years are like a day. And I remember how Jesus waited, how Jesus prayed on a mountaintop, and then I’m no longer in such a hurry to get what I need (or want). The promises are true, and they aren’t fulfilled on any timetable except the will of God. And God is not going anywhere. He’s here to stay.
I can wait much more easily when I wait in Jesus’ shadow, watching him kneel, watching him raise his hands to heaven, watching him cry out … and then be still, breathing in the breath of heaven.
(Isaiah 29, Psalm 27, Matthew 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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