The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Hebrews 9:23-28
23 Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; 26 for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

In 1981, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers told the world, “The waiting is the hardest part.” While I’m sure Tom Petty was referring to love or something more fitting for an early eighties pop song, his words are no less true—waiting can be the hardest part of nearly any ordeal you face in life. After all, most people (if not all people) hate to wait.
Think about it: you make a quick stop at the grocery store on your way home to pick up a gallon of milk (especially after you had to check and be sure it wasn’t buttermilk you poured on your cereal that morning). You park in the closest spot you can find, make a beeline for the dairy section, hustle towards the register, just to come to the front of the store to find that only two registers are open, and it seems like everyone in Calhoun County is buying groceries for the week! So you get in line and wait, and what was supposed to be a quick dash into the store turns into a practice of patience as you stand in line…waiting.
Or have you ever been driving down Quintard Avenue, either heading towards or coming from Oxford, just to get stuck at a red light? Then, as if getting caught in the inevitable sequence of stop-and-go traffic wasn’t enough, the car in front of you at the traffic light lurches and bucks as the light changes from red to green. Turns out you’re stuck behind someone trying to teach their kid how to drive a stick-shift and they’ve stalled the car—through the green light, then the yellow, and back to red. Of course, none of the other drivers coming down the road give you a break to get over, so you’re stuck there while an embarrassed parent quickly switches seats with his or her child. You’re stuck there…waiting.
Most of us don’t like waiting; we’re impatient, always in a hurry to get to wherever it is we are going, always ready for the next item on the “to-do” list, and we surely don’t have time to wait for something to slow us down or bring us to a halt. It’s been that way for generations; the only difference I suppose between this generation and those that have gone on before is that our impatience is regularly appeased. We don’t have to wait for the right season for our favorite fruits and vegetables. We have mobile phones that can not only let us make calls when we’re away from home, but they can tell us when we have an appointment, send emails, pay bills, and all other sorts of menial tasks that might otherwise slow us down. We can pay for gas at the pump without ever walking inside the gas station; we can get lunch without ever putting our car in park; we can receive mail electronically within a matter of seconds. We have all sorts of tricks and technology that have helped us avoid waiting, and yet somehow we still find ourselves in those situations that are out of our control, where we are forced to wait.
I know I tend to look at the season of Lent that way. For six weeks we have been listening to the preacher in the book of Hebrews, and for six weeks we’ve been on our way to this day—Easter Sunday. Some, however, have wanted to “jump the gun” (especially since it is so late this year) and assume that Easter has already taken place. Some wanted to just get the day over with so life can go back to something like normal. Some folks just wanted Easter to get here so they can get dressed up and come to church at least once so their parents or grandparents will leave them alone (at least until Christmas). They all just wanted this day to hurry up and get here, but we all had to wait.
You know, those first followers of Jesus had to wait. For around three years they followed Jesus, and during that time Jesus seemed to be testing their patience with words like those in John 7:7-8 "My time has not yet come…my time has not yet fully come.” They were just going to have to wait for that time to come. They had to wait as they heard Jesus say all those wonderfully confusing parables about the Kingdom of God and what it was going to be like. They had to wait as Jesus went from village to village, teaching and healing and serving. They had to wait despite all the affirming miracles and all the telling signs. They had to wait until that night finally came, that night when Jesus was betrayed and arrested. They had waited and then things didn’t go the way they had hoped. They waited to hear the verdict—crucifixion. They waited for the sentence to be carried out on that first Good Friday, and then…they waited.
I suppose that Saturday, that Sabbath, was the longest of all. They waited to see what would happen: would Rome come after them next? Would the Sanhedrin find them as co-conspirators in the blasphemy of which they accused Jesus? Should they run? Should they hide? Should they relent? Should they fight? Or should they just…wait? I imagine the waiting was the hardest part, waiting through the long hours of Saturday, hoping to hear something from someone concerning Jesus. I imagine some of them, in the midst of their waiting, thought it was over, just a pipe dream they had been duped into chasing. I imagine some of them felt defeated and some of them felt let down. Waiting can do that to you, you know. It can take away your hope, whittle down your desire and cool your emotions. Waiting can distract you or cause you to give up. It really can be the hardest part.
Thankfully, those first disciples only had to wait one day. The good news of that first Easter morning spread like the pollen in the spring as Jesus’ disciples heard it and witnessed the resurrected Jesus. Then others heard the disciples’ testimonies, and then others heard their testimonies, and so on and so on. It wasn’t long before the news of Jesus’ resurrection had spread, and the followers of the Way (the title given to the earliest followers of Jesus, before they were called Christians) were growing in great numbers. The apostles had taken their eye-witness accounts all across the Roman Empire; a former threat and new brother called Paul was taking the good news of Christ’s resurrection to people who weren’t even Jews; and the growing Church was beginning to separate from the Jewish faith that had bore it. It was in that atmosphere, an atmosphere of waiting, that many of the books of the New Testament were written, including the book of Hebrews.
Throughout Hebrews we have heard how Christ is our ultimate sacrifice; we have heard how he intercedes on our behalf as the great high priest in the order of Melchizedek; and we have heard how the old ways, the old covenant, were merely a shadow of the heavenly ways and the new covenant in Christ—all wonderful, glorious realities that we have heard time and time again in a part of the world that is (as Flannery O’Connor said) “Christ-haunted.” In the text before us this morning, however, there is something that ought to catch our attention, words that ought to stand out to us this day as we remember that first Easter morning and the hope that came with an empty tomb.
In verses 27 and 28 the author writes, “And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” “Christ…will appear a second time…to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” What’s this about waiting? We hate waiting! Of course, by the time the early Church was able to take hold of the truth of Jesus’ resurrection they had to turn their attention to what he said would come next. He said he’d be back, but when?! Some in the early Church panicked: Paul had to write to the congregation at Thessalonica at least twice trying to straighten out their misunderstanding of what the return of Christ would look like. It’s a similar trend that has continued down through the history of the Church to the present day, as in every generation there is always some wide-eyed preacher with the courage and/or ignorance to proclaim “I know that Christ will return in my lifetime!” It’s no accident that both believers and non-believers alike love to talk about what the end times will be like. They write books, create movies, and make predictions, stringing together loosely interpreted passages of Scripture in order to prove their point. Why do they do it? Because of uncertainty, the uncertainty that comes with waiting.
But hold on a minute. Aren’t we done with the whole waiting thing? After all, isn’t that what Easter is all about: Jesus came, he died, and he rose again? That’s it, right? No more waiting. Well, yes. However, there is still Jesus’ promise to us that he will return, that he will once again come to earth bringing an end to this world by bringing the beginning of the next. There is still the hope of eternity that lies out ahead of us, beyond our reach, that began with that first Easter morning and grows closer with each passing day. You see, when it comes to the expectation in waiting for Christ’s return, waiting is no longer a passive annoyance. It is an expectant action! We do not wait as those first disciples did on that Saturday before the Christ’s resurrection, for we know that Christ is coming again: he told us he would, and he has yet to break his word! We do not wait like so many who tap their feet and keep their eyes on the clock, for we know the day is coming and we have work to do before it does. Waiting, for us, is the hardest part not because it means we are stuck here biding our time until Christ calls us home, but because there is an uncertainty as to how much time we have left! Christ may return today; you might die today; nothing may happen, and we may all live long, happy lives. But in the mean time, while we are waiting Christ calls us to himself. He calls us to accept the grace that was poured out on that cross on that first Good Friday. He calls us to accept the hope that came with the empty tomb on that first Easter morning. And, as our Scripture tells us this morning, “just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
What are you waiting for this morning? Are you waiting for a sign? Something to tell you that today is the day for you to turn your life over to the One who knows you better than you can ever know yourself? Are you waiting for things to get better, for your life to get straightened out so you can be “acceptable”? What are you waiting for today? Let me tell you that there is nothing worth waiting for more than Christ, and there is nothing that can keep you from him. There is no sign clearer than the conquered cross and the empty tomb. So what are you waiting for today? This day we have heard the Good News that Jesus has conquered death and has risen from the grave, and he offers you the free gift of salvation. So won’t you take that first step towards Christ? Won’t you begin to follow the path of a life lived waiting for him? If you do, you will see that the waiting, while it may be the hardest part, is indeed what makes life worth the living.
Let us pray...