Tom Petty said waiting is the hardest part. I agree with him 100 percent. Waiting is the worst. I wonder if it has always been the hardest part or if we’ve just gotten really bad at it and don’t want to do it? We almost get personally offended when we have to wait for something. What do you mean I won’t get my Amazon Prime shipment for a week? Why can’t you tell me when I can leave my house? Buffering!? Play my movie already.
I’ve been thinking a lot about waiting while I’ve been sheltered in my house these last few weeks. It feels like waiting in the dark because we don’t know when anything will end, if we’ll get sick or if someone we love we’ll get sick. I’m waiting on the day we get the all clear to go back to, well, anywhere. I’m waiting for my kids to go back to school. I’m waiting on this virus to pass. I’m waiting on the economy and life to go back to something that resembles normal.
Have you ever had to wait on bad stuff to happen? Like maybe you’re going through a haunted house and are just waiting for the scares that you know are coming. Waiting on death is the worst. I don’t know what it would be like to get that kind of diagnosis personally, but I was in the doctor’s office with both of my parents when they were told nothing else could be done. That is an incredibly hard wait.
This is Holy Week. I guess being in a season of forced waiting, I got to thinking about what it might have been like for Jesus, his disciples, followers and even his haters to wait. Death on a cross certainly came with waiting. I was reading the account in each of the Gospels. Can you imagine those three hours of darkness from 6 to 9 – everyone just waiting in the darkness?
The Bible doesn’t tell us what happens in those hours. Jesus was in agony no doubt – not just physical but mental. God turned His back for that moment. When someone we love turns their back on us it’s an awful feeling. It hurts. But Jesus knew what would happen. He knew His purpose.
His opposition must have been pretty nervous. It was a baseless case against Him, and they knew what He was capable of. Do you think they wondered if He would die or what might happen when He did? Would angels come and rescue Him? Would God act? I bet they were holding their breath.
Mostly though, I wondered about His disciples and the women who followed Him so closely. He told them what was coming. They had been warned. You know it was hard for them to watch it happen. Do you think they lost hope? Did they feel like they had been sold swamp land for oceanfront prices? We know they grieved after Jesus died. We know they questioned their beliefs. And we know that once they learned of the resurrection, they doubted. They doubted hardcore for a hot minute. Enough that Jesus called them out on it.
We’re never prepared for death – even when we know it’s coming. It’s shocking anytime it happens. They were surely shocked, saddened, fearful, questioning, and so many other emotions during the waiting. Even the daylight on the day after must have seemed like darkness. For a minute they had lost their hope. After the resurrection, Jesus was having a conversation with a couple followers as they walked down the road to Emmaus. The follower named Cleopas said, “we had hoped (NIV) or we were hoping (KJ) that He (Jesus) would be the one to redeem Israel.”
Waiting in the darkness definitely puts hope to the test. I know waiting in times of darkness and uncertainty has sure taken my hope to the breaking point – where I question all the things. If it’s taken yours, you’re in good company. Those disciples were hand picked by Jesus.
Not only did Jesus settle their doubts following the resurrection, He ate with them, He explained things to them, He promised them the help of the Holy Spirit. He blessed them and was taken into Heaven right in front of them. They worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with “great joy.”
I love how after such a gauntlet of waiting, hard reality and myriad emotions that the fulfillment of their hope left them full of joy. Though we may be forced to wait through times of darkness, suffering, sadness, fear, confusion, doubt or anger, we can hope anyway.
The world may be topsy turvey and full of waiting in some degree of darkness this Easter season but 1 Peter 1:3 reminds us that we have a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Hope in Jesus is never misplaced. Let’s remember that this Easter as we wait through this period of darkness.
