Some of the hardest trials of the Christian life come not from what must be done but from that about which nothing can be done. Think about these words: Wait, endure, stay. What do they mean? They mean to continue in a state—of expectation, of suffering, or of both. These are liminal spaces: In them, we are caught between the way things are and the way we hope they shall be. We feel out of place, disoriented, reliant on factors we do not observe and/or cannot understand—the constant Christian condition. When Jesus prays for the disciples and for us in the Gospel according to John (Ch. 17, v. 15), “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” he is speaking of the same state. Our only positive action in these states is to be, and that sounds as if it would be easy, but it is not.
“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,” we read in Proverbs (Ch. 13, v. 12). Note that we do not read, “Hope denied.” The hope may yet be fulfilled; that does not make the act of hoping easy. The waiting—the time spent hoping—itself is enough to make the heart sick. To wait is to be and to hope at once (Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: Ch. 8, v. 25). A Christian is a stranger in the earth—because they are on earth yet they do not expect to stay there. The apostle Peter writes (in his Second Epistle: Ch. 3, v. 13), “Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” We expect things shall get better. When? We do not know. How? Through Jesus Christ but we don’t know precisely what he plans to do. We are exhausted by uncertainties. We can become so exhausted that the act of hoping at all seems misguided; the apostle Paul addresses this (in his Epistle to the Romans: Ch. 5, v. 5), saying that “hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” For the Christian, hope is not vain because it works with the Holy Ghost within us to bring forth love, the very love of God. That love is the essence of all that is good, all that is divine. That love is the essence of the new world we’re waiting for, and it gives us enough of a foothold in that world to continue in this one until our hopes are realized.
Endurance is slightly more uncomfortable—for, in it, we are waiting not for something to begin, but for something to end. We all endure—we all suffer—different things, yet there are common threads throughout our experiences. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” the Psalmist writes (in the 23rd Psalm, v. 4). “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” We all walk through this valley, this world. We all know its violence and, perhaps even more so, its fear: Our sense of all the things hiding in its shadows—all the dark things we imagine and cannot see. How can we continue in such a state, when our knees buckle under us and our tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth? In the Gospel according to Matthew (Ch. 1, v. 23), we read of a curious event that gives us the answer: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” I will fear no evil, the Psalmist says. For thou art with me. There is only one answer for how we can endure in such a state: Jesus Christ, God with us. Yes, we suffer, but we do not suffer alone. Just like the thief on the cross (in the Gospel according to Luke: Ch. 23, v. 39-43), we must look beside us, to another bleeding man, another face stained by sweat and tears, and say, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” And, to us, as to that thief, Jesus says, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” When our mutual suffering ends and this life’s day is past, we will welcome the new world just as we left this one—together with Christ.
Yet, these states are not independent of each other in our lives: We are every day waiting; we are every day enduring. To do either of these things with stillness requires disciplined meditation: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee,” the prophet writes in the Book of Isaiah (Ch. 26, v. 3). It is only in considering our place within Christ and Christ’s place within our humanity that we will find peace. David narrates in the 110th Psalm (v. 1): “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Here, we find that Christ also must sit and wait. Again, David prophecies of the resurrection of Christ with these words (in the 16th Psalm, v. 9-10): “Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Here, we find that Christ also must endure—hell itself. And this Christ, that has harrowed hell and waits with us for the restoration of the world at the right hand of the Father, is within us and we in him (Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians: Ch. 1, v. 27-28).
The Psalmist writes (in the 23rd Psalm, v. 5-6): “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.” As paradoxical as it sounds, we must learn not only to have confidence in our eternal future but to see the foreshadows of that future within our daily lives, even in the presence of our enemies. We must see Christ within ourselves, sustaining us—something of which the table and the cup serve as a mysterious image; we must see ourselves in Christ, anointed and baptized into his Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul tells us (in his Epistle to the Ephesians: Ch. 1, v. 14) that this “is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” This is the earnest—the foretaste, the guarantee, the assurance of what is to come—and it tells us that what is coming is certainly worth the wait.
Comparing Notes 