Isaiah 40.12-17,27-31, Matthew 28.16-20
Trinity Sunday, 4 June 2023, Eldroth, Clapham
‘Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles…..’
I don’t know about you but - in the week when I turn 61 - I feel like I’ve reached the time of life that whenever I rise up - from my bed, from my chair - I can’t do so without letting out an involuntary groan…. ‘Aaaaaaaagh…..’ I exhale: ‘My back; my knees…’ Far from mounting up like an eagle, I feel more like an overweight pigeon wobbling slowly towards more food.
The scriptures are full of encouragement for the elders: last week we heard God declaring that he will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and … ‘your old men shall dream dreams’ - of a better future for all, which the Holy Spirit gives us power to shape. Today, we hear this promise: that God gives power and strength to the faint and weary; this wonderful image that ‘those who wait for the Lord’ will renew their strength and ‘mount up with wings like eagles’.
Now, waiting is something which we are very used to doing. Whilst I mention my aches and pains, these are nothing compared to the extreme pain felt by those whose hip operation has been delayed for months, even years, on a waiting list.
Waiting is a common human experience, of course, whether waiting at the traffic lights or at the pharmacy, or for exam results, or for a wedding. Last weekend, with friends far and wide, I was waiting with dread for my football team to be relegated… thankfully in the end we were spared. [1]
Probably the profoundest experience of waiting, which humans share with all the other creatures, is in a pregnancy: a lengthy time of waiting, with all the physical changes and challenges the mother experiences, and her, and others’, emotional ups and downs whist the unknown arrival time gets closer.
And think of the bald eagles, incubating their eggs for 35 days, with the much larger and tougher female bird taking the longer incubation periods overnight or during storms to protect her precious young.
Life teaches us to wait with patience; though we wait impatiently too. Life teaches us to wait with confidence; but nerves and fears can overcome us in our waiting. Life teaches us to wait in hope; but sometimes we give in to the prevailing spirit of the world which wants us to give up and give in to the lie that the way things are, are the way they always will be: this, I suggest, is waiting without the Lord.
So, what does ‘waiting for the Lord’ mean? If those who wait for the Lord renew their strength, and mount up with wings like eagles, if they run and not be weary, if they walk and not faint, then we should consider this question deeply and often, for it will help us in our times of waiting.
Pat Bennett, a writer with a dual background in medicine and theology, who specialises in exploring the boundary between religious practice and health, has some helpful things to teach us about waiting for the Lord. [2]
Waiting for the Lord, she says, is not dead time, but a dreaming time, through which new ideas and insights are engendered. We may take and use the dreaming times to re-imagine the world.
Waiting for the Lord, she says, is not lost time, but a liminal time, a time of transition, within which new possibilities and patterns take form. We may inhabit and use the liminal times to discover the patterns of God.
Waiting for the Lord, she says, is not quiescent time, a time of inactivity, but a quickening time, from which new life and love emerges. We may embrace and use the quickening times to learn how to live and love.
Waiting for the Lord is an act of will, a decision of the heart. It is founded on our trust for him, and we show our trust by seeking him out in reading the scriptures, speaking and listening to him in prayer,
We confess that sometimes we have waited without thought, and so have stifled fruitful possibility.
We confess that sometimes we have waited without generosity and so have constricted fruitful connection.
We confess that sometimes we have waited without hope and so have limited fruitful action.
We confess that sometimes we have simply been too busy or too distracted to wait, and so have missed God’s moment.
Whenever we turn and look for God, he will forgive the poverty of our waiting. When we turn and wait for him, God will touch our dreaming, stretch our living and energise our acting.
You know, our times of worship are times of waiting for the Lord; and especially here, around the communion table, where we ‘inhabit God’s time’. This is a place where ‘we recognise that the One for whom we wait is also the one who is already, and always, here with us’.
So whether we come here ‘hopefully, like we are watching for the dawn, or anxiously, like we are dreading first light, whether we come waiting with hope, or hiding our face; however we come, we can come with quiet confidence because God is already here, watching for our coming, and waiting with love and joy to welcome us in.’
Here we remember Jesus, who, whilst waiting to be betrayed, shared supper with his friends, blessing and breaking bread, and pouring and sharing wine, so that we might re-imagine love.
Here we remember Jesus, who, waiting in the tomb for God’s moment, threw down the gates of hell and drew the sting of death so that we might re-imagine the world.
Here we remember Jesus, who knows what it is to wait, and who shows us what it is to wait well.
May we allow the Holy Spirit to transform our times of watching and waiting into times of watching and waiting for the Lord. And in that way may we find that we may rise… on wings…and renew our strength.
Notes
[1] Everton 1 Bournemouth 0. Match Report. evertonfc.com, 28 May 2023.
[2] The second part of this talk is based substantially on the words of Pat Bennett, In This Season of Waiting: A communion liturgy for Advent, ionabooks.com. Pat Bennett, Oxford Brookes University, Religion and Theology, Post-Doc, CV.
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