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Waiting is difficult. It was difficult for little Zoe and her toddler brother Hammie in one of the "Baby Blues" comic strips. They had heard about a mail-order offer. If they send in the card, the company will send them some live caterpillars, which they can then watch grow into butterflies. Dad thinks this is a great idea, so he helps Zoe and Hammie fill out the card, and the three of them take the card out to their mailbox at the curb. Dad holds Zoe up so she can reach the mailbox and says, "Okay, now just put the card in the mailbox and raise the little flag." "Then what?" asks Zoe. "Then we wait for the company to send us our live caterpillars." "Okay," says Zoe. Dad puts Zoe down, and Zoe turns and watches the mailbox for a moment. Then she turns back to dad and asks, "What's taking them so long?" The next day Zoe asks, "Did our callipidders come in the mail today?" "No, not yet, guys," says dad. "Awwwww!!!" complain the children. "You just mailed the card yesterday," says dad. "It might take a week and a half for the caterpillars to get here." "A WEEK AND A HALF?" gasps Zoe. "Come on!" says dad. "It's just ten days." "How many cartoon shows is that?" asks Zoe. For days Zoe and Hammie wait impatiently for their live caterpillars. At last, the day comes when they arrive, and the children dance with excitement as mom helps them open the box and settle their caterpillars into their new home. "Now we put the caterpillars in these little jars and give them this special food," mom explains. "I'm so glad our callipidders finally got here," says Zoe. "I was SO tired of waiting. Wait, wait, wait, all we did was wait! So what do we do next?" "We wait," mom replies. Waiting is a big part of human life, a difficult part for some of us. We like to have things NOW! Instant coffee, instant success, even instant butterflies. But there are no instant butterflies, just as there are no instant children, and most people who live beyond adolescence know that there are some things in life worth waiting for and some things that can be had only by waiting. Peter Gomes once suggested that essentially what Satan tempted Jesus to do was to refuse to wait. Satan tempted Jesus to go for the superficial quick fix, tempted him to grab what would satisfy for the moment rather than to persevere in search of that which satisfies for eternity. First, Satan tempted Jesus to satisfy his physical hunger in the wilderness by turning stones into bread, tempted him "to buy survival at any price" rather than to endure that hunger of the soul that alone can lead to intimacy with God. Next, Satan tempted Jesus to grab temporal power, power that can satisfy only for a time, rather than to persevere in pursuit of that spiritual and moral authority obtained by remaining true to the deeper strength of God. Third, Satan tempted Jesus to prove his identity as Son of God by spectacle, tempted him to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple and dare God to catch him, rather than to live into who he was by making his way to Calvary on a donkey, on an ass, the foal of an ass, and by dying on a cross. But Jesus waited. And in waiting, he was, of course, patient, which is what waiting means. And he suffered in the hope of something more, which is also what waiting means. And Satan waited, too, because Satan, too, is no fool. Having failed to best Jesus in the wilderness, Satan "departed from Jesus until an opportune time," the Scriptures tell us. Satan also knew the necessity and importance of waiting, of patience. And perhaps one of those opportune times Satan waited for came that day when Jesus and Simon and Andrew and James and John were in Capernaum. After Jesus healed the man with the demon, he went to the house of Simon and Andrew. There they found Simon's mother-in-law in bed with a fever. And Jesus took her by the hand and raised her to her feet, and her fever left her. And that very evening – on the evening of the same day on which Jesus had taught with such authority and had driven the demon out of a man in the synagogue and had healed Simon's mother-inlaw, on the evening of that very same day, says Mark – the people brought to Jesus "all those in town who were ill, or possessed by demons. And the whole town was there, gathered ‘round the door. And Jesus healed many that evening, and he drove out many demons." But the next morning, says Mark, "Jesus got up and left. He walked out. He went away to a remote spot, and remained there in prayer." "So Simon and the other disciples went searching for Jesus, and when they found him, they said, ‘Hey! What are you doing out here? Everybody in town is looking for you.' But Jesus said, ‘That's enough healing for now. It's time to move on. I've got to preach the Good News elsewhere as well, because that's what I came to do.'" I wonder if this isn't one of those opportune times Satan was waiting for, one of those times Satan was waiting for to tempt Jesus through his friend Simon, waiting to tempt Jesus once again to satisfy the needs of the present moment at the expense of his message and his vocation. Can't you just imagine Simon's harangue? "For heaven's sake, Jesus, with the way you've got with words and the power you've got for healing – just imagine it! – why, you could heal everyone within miles of here! You could become the doctor of all Galilee. With power like yours, they'll soon make you mayor of Capernaum, maybe even governor of all Samaria! And once we've established your credentials here in the provinces, well – who knows? – maybe you could even command a post in Jerusalem. Maybe even king! And after that the sky's the limit." But Jesus knew, as T. S. Eliot later said, that "the last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." Jesus knew that if butterflies arrive as if by magic, rather than by being born of caterpillars, then we can enjoy the momentary fluttering of their wings but can never know the mystery of creation and life. Jesus knew that if he grabs our allegiance by healing our aching limbs and itching skin, then we might follow him as long as he can provide relief, but that if he does not reach our hearts as well we will never know the deeper healing of that enduring love that cures the soul. And for Jesus, to do the one without the other would be the greatest treason, the right deed done for the wrong reason. I'm reminded of Frank McCourt's insightful line in Angela's Ashes: "When I look back on my childhood," he said, "I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood; the happy childhood is hardly worth your while." On one level, of course, the statement is absurd. A happy childhood is a good thing, not a bad thing. But the happy childhood in the sense of the pampered childhood, the childhood in which no knee is ever skinned, the childhood in which every desire and expectation is immediately granted, can lead to misery in the long run. The spoiled child often makes for the most rotten and miserable adult. Mature happiness, something worth waiting for, is often the fruit of childhood expectations unmet. I wonder. When everyone was crowded ‘round the door – crowds pressing so hard on another occasion, the Gospels say, that Jesus could hardly breathe, crowds looking for Jesus to fix all their problems, to heal their every infirmity – I wonder if Jesus didn't recall then his temptation in the wilderness. I wonder if that moment wasn't part of his temptation in the wilderness – the temptation, as Halford Luccock saw it, for Jesus to allow himself to become the institutionalized possession of a local group in Galilee! "Just scratch their itch, Jesus. Just fix their problems, just meet their expectations, just heal all their infirmities and miseries. You're the Son of God; you can do it! And when you do, they'll follow you anywhere and you can be king of all this world for as long as you live." "But what about God's world?" Jesus must have wondered. "And what about God's time? A kingdom of ‘all-this-world-for-as-long-as-I-live' is a puny kingdom. Is that the limit of God's hopes, and of mine? Or is there something more, something more worth waiting for, something more worth hoping for, something more worth even suffering for?" So Jesus said, "Get behind me, Simon – er, uh, Satan – for you think as men think, not as God thinks. I've got to get out of here and go to other towns so I can proclaim the Good News of God there as well, because that is why I've come." So who is this Jesus? Here we are crowding around him again today, all gathered ‘round Jesus' door seeking healing, just wanting a sign or two, maybe a miracle or two to confirm our hope, just wanting Jesus to throw our demons out as spectacularly as he threw out the demon of the man at the synagogue, just wanting him to lift our fevers as he lifted Simon's mother-in-law's fever, just seeking to have him touch us and get rid of our troubles and meet our expectations, just wanting him to scratch our itch. Here we are all gathered ‘round Jesus' front door with our broken bodies and broken dreams, and Jesus disappears out the back door to go preach somewhere else. Who was that masked man anyway? A few weeks ago – at our celebration of his baptism on January 8 – we knew who Jesus was. Or we thought we did. Jesus is the Son of God, the Spirit told us that day, the One God is pleased with, the long-awaited Messiah. But today – just four weeks and twenty or thirty verses further into the Gospel of Mark after we heard for sure who he is and thought we knew who he was – Jesus slips out the back door, acting like anything but a messiah, just slipping off to pray rather than to use this opportunity to shower us with miracles. Just who is he? William Willimon says that he remembers going into a classroom as a college student, when he was young and full of assurance about Jesus and ready to defend Jesus against the world, and there on the blackboard he found that a student from the previous class had written, "Will Success Spoil Jesus Christ?" "That question has haunted me ever since," an older and wiser Willimon says. And Willimon wonders, and I wonder, if the same question didn't haunt Jesus himself that day when the whole town was crowded ‘round his door, impatiently wanting to wait no longer, wanting Messiah now, wanting healing now, wanting answers now. "After all, isn't it the job of a messiah to do God's work in the world?" we ask. "Isn't it the job of a messiah to do good deeds? Isn't healing a good thing, part of God's work? Isn't it a good thing that crowds of people are pressing ‘round you, Jesus? And isn't it a good thing, Jesus, that we're building mega churches in your Name? Isn't it good that we are creating ‘Christian' TV networks and ‘Christian' web pages, and now even ‘Christian' politics? Isn't this all good, Jesus?" And wouldn't it be good, Jesus, if you yourself would just take charge of this messed up world of yours, this world of terrorism and war, this world of sinking ferries and sinking economies? Isn't it your job to take charge, Jesus, and throw the evildoers out? Isn't that what a messiah is for, for heaven's sake? And for ours?" Well, I don't know. Today's Gospel reading leaves us with a bunch of questions, and I don't think we like questions. Don't we come to church and read the Bible to get answers, to have things explained to us, not to get more questions? What are we to make of a messiah who shies away from crowds and press conferences? What do we do with a messiah who seems concerned about too much success and who runs out the back door looking for a place to pray, alone, when there are terrorists to fight and still a lot of fevers to lift, and lots of other messiah jobs like that? Maybe we are to wait. Maybe today's Gospel reading is saying that we need to be patient, to wait as Jesus waited. Maybe it's saying that we need to wait upon God, to pray and wait, as Jesus prayed and waited, for further clarity about what messiahs do and for further clarity about what disciples do in messiahs' names. Maybe, as Thomas Keating suggests, we need to wait to see where Jesus goes in the weeks and months and verses of the Bible after today. Maybe we need to wait to see what Jesus says and what he does during the rest of the year and the rest of his life, as he makes his way from Epiphany to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday. Maybe we need to wait to see where Jesus goes from Capernaum to wherever it is he is going to end up, washing people's feet and dying on a cross. Maybe we need to wait for Jesus to be revealed to us as Messiah actually is, and as Messiah is going to be, not as we want him to be. Maybe, in the long run, as we stumble along after Jesus, sometimes thinking we know Jesus for sure and sometimes not knowing what's going on, maybe the point, maybe the good news, is not to have answers, but to have Jesus. Maybe the point, maybe the good news, is to have Jesus on the road with us in the world that is – to have a Jesus who shares our infirmities and fevers and demons and doubts, to have a Jesus who is as uncomfortable with crowds as we are, to have a Jesus who is as skeptical of success as we are, to have a Jesus who is as much in need of prayer and healing as we are. Maybe the point, maybe the good news, is to have a Jesus who shows us how to live and to love even in a painful and messed up world like ours, to have a Jesus who is just as human as we are and just as reluctant to die as we are, and who hurts as much when he suffers as we hurt when we suffer. Maybe the point, maybe the good news, is to have the Jesus who comes to us as he is, not as we want him to be, the Jesus who waits with us, the Jesus who keeps on proclaiming that Good News he was sent to preach even when we're suffering and when he's suffering – the Good News that God loves us no matter what, no matter our fevers and demons and doubts, no matter our fears, no matter our successes or failures, no matter the uncertainties and dangers of life. Maybe, in the long run, as we stumble along after Jesus, sometimes thinking we know him for sure and sometimes not knowing what in the world is going on, maybe the point, maybe the good news, is not to have instant butterflies, but to have caterpillars. Not to have answers, but to have Jesus, to have Jesus love us and suffer with us the way God himself loves us and suffers with us. Maybe, in the long run, sharing that love and that life, rather than having answers, is the point of life, the Good News worth waiting for. In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |