feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying . . . leading . (Isaiah 40:11)
Dear family,
On Sunday we picked up the “Here’s Hoping” series again and looked at the Isaiah 40:31 encouragement that those who wait and hope in the Lord will renew their strength. We noted the context of several passages from the Psalms that showed particular ways that strength was indeed renewed through hopeful waiting. We began to look at the cruciality of patience in relation to our hope, but also the incredible damage that impatience does. We’ll talk about that more next time…if you can wait that long!
The spiritual fact is that waiting and hoping are non-negotiable parts of our faith -walk, and as Spurgeon put it, why would we be surprised that the patient Savior would require patience of his disciples. I suggested that both at the beginning of his life on earth, to the moment that he ascended, Jesus was synonymous with “waiting and hoping.” One of my favorite presentations of this hopeful waiting, this eager patience, is at the very beginning of the story of the new covenant. The hopelessness was 400 years long and deep. It continued in the profiles of the characters in the story. The evil of a Herod is public, the mention of divorce jars the reader, there is Elizabeth’s barrenness and Zechariah’s dumbness representing the loss of hope and a future. The participants are too old, or too late, or too unconnected, or too sad. How I love Simeon and Anna! As the messianic hope bursts as a reality into the pages of history, the gusting Holy Spirit blows these two into the perfect co-ordinates of the will of God. Of Simeon it was said “he was waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” (Lk.2:25) How charismatic is that! And what about darling Anna, waiting in the temple night and day, fasting and praying, “looking forward to the redemption of Israel.”
Simeon and Anna are persevering, patient, faithful, hoping and actually totally expectant, never succumbing to disappointment as the years rolled by, never allowing the lack of fulfillment and therefore the necessity of continued hoping, to stop them fulfilling what God had given them to do and what God had made them to be. Again, despite the realities of aging, their hoping just got stronger, seemed to engender more faith and fervor, and it seems they just spoke about it more and more. There’s a magnetic quality to their lives. You just want to know more about them. As old as they are, there is a vigor and a spriteliness, a holy activism about them, sharp and focused minds, that more than support the fruits of hope in those that hope for God. Anna is a particularly amazing example as she is off everyone’s radar, except God’s. She was from the lost tribe of Asher, just to add to her lost-ness, and lost to marriage as a widow, lost to men. But she never said she was hidden from God’s view! And then there’s Simeon, who once he can say “as you have promised” (testimony to the hope fulfilled) is just eager for the next experience of hope “dismiss your servant in peace.” There is something in the perseverance of the hoping that is in itself purifying and strengthening, even in the face of possible discouragement. Hoping that is wearying and discouraging, is only empowered and emboldened through continued hoping. The Gospels begin by offering these incredible examples of waiting hopefully.
But what about the end of the Gospels and the beginning of the experience of the early church? Read the text! Hope, the hope of Christ returning, the fulfillment of the hope of our salvation, was communicated to the disciples by the angels immediately after Jesus was ascended and before they could take a step into their new life. “This same Jesus…will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11) But what had been communicated by Jesus before that? “Wait…” (Acts 1:4) And of course, that question that comes to challenge our hope arises immediately in v6, where they are basically asking: “How long?” and Jesus says it is not for them to know the times and dates, which means that trusting patience is the order of the day, the very DNA of daily spiritual life. You see, only the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of hope, would be able to resource them for what lay ahead, and for the supply of hope and patience for the blessed hope that they were about to hear from the angels. It is the supremely charismatic work of the Holy Spirit according to Paul in Rom.5:5 that ensures that hope will never disappoint us. Paul tells the Ephesians that it is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that helps them to know, better and better, the hope to which they have been called. To be charismatic is to be filled with the hope of God. To be a disciple is to live with patient waiting between our new birth into a living hope, and the blessed hope that is yet to come.
What I’m suggesting is that all those who participated in Jesus’ life and story were tutored to wait on the Lord in hope. We are among that number! May our hopeful waiting indeed renew our strength to continue to wait hopefully as patience does its “perfect work.”
Pastorally (and patiently) yours,
Stuart
http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)