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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this morning comes from the prophet Jeremiah’s Old Testament reading of Lamentations. Will you pray with me? In the midst of utter woe, when our sins oppress us, where shall we for refuge go? Wherefore grace to bless us, to thee, Lord Jesus, only. Thy precious blood was shed to win full atonement for our sin.
Holy and righteous God, holy and mighty God, holy and all-merciful Savior, eternal Lord God, Lord, preserve and keep us in the peace that faith can give. Have mercy, O Lord. Amen.
You may be seated. Don’t let it pass you by the interesting note of the time mentioned in the Gospel reading. At the same time that Jairus and his wife were celebrating the birth of their little girl, did the woman who had the discharge begin to discharge the blood? The little girl was 12 years old. The woman had a discharge for 12 years.
It’s interesting because the woman who had the discharge for 12 years, the same day or month or close to it as when Jairus’ little girl was born, did she have thrust in front of her face her great need to be healed of this bloody discharge? While over here where Jairus and his wife were celebrating the birth of their little girl, they were blind to the need that would arise 12 years later, weren’t they? And isn’t that how it is with you and me?
Sometimes we’re able to see the need that we have, and it becomes so in our face that it consumes all of our thoughts and our minds, and we pray about it, not to know that there are other needs. And then we can be so blind to the need that would arise in 12 years’ time that we think nothing of it because it’ll never happen to us, will it? Jairus and his wife might have thought.
It’s this in-between time, the time between when you either see your great need and begin praying for it, and the answer to that prayer or the resolution to this thing that happens, you wait. So for the woman who had the discharge for 12 years, she waited 12 long years. Every morning and every night she prayed to the Lord to take this away, and the Lord didn’t take it away. In fact, the Lord allowed her to spend all of her money to try to find healing, and He didn’t give it to her.
In fact, the Lord allowed her to go through many physicians, and in fact, going through all of those physicians to find healing, she found it even to come worse for her. Her need was very evident in front of her. Her need was very evident to her Lord, who heard every single one of her prayers spoken or thought. But do you know what her Lord wanted her to do? Wait. Wait.
Now you can look at Jairus and his wife, the birth of their daughter, the same time when this woman’s discharge began, and they couldn’t see their need, could they? They didn’t know that she would die a sudden death at 12 years old. They had a huge need, but they were blind to it because of their own sin. No different than the woman who had the discharge.
Were there other things about which she should and could be praying? Absolutely. Because the temptation for both the woman and the couple is to only pray for those things that you think and or feel. And if you don’t think it or feel it, you don’t pray about it. Now you’re thinking, Pastor, you’re spending a lot of time working on that gospel reading. I thought you said the Old Testament was what you’re going to preach upon. And it is, because the Old Testament is where Jeremiah said this: The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in Him. I will wait in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Why? Why is it so good to wait? Because you remember and I remember growing up, that was what you and I both had a hard time doing. And in fact, we still have a hard time doing that horrific P word that was told to you at school and at home: Patience, patience, patience, patience. And God is talking about it’s okay to wait. And not only just wait, mind you, but wait either having this horror facing you for 12 long years and it only getting worse, like in the woman, or waiting without even knowing what was ahead of you.
We typically want to relate ourselves to the woman because we typically can think about waiting when we know what we are waiting about. Jairus and his wife had no idea for what they were waiting for. Neither did my brother and my sister-in-law when their little girl was taken from them at six years old. They had no idea for what they were waiting for six years. They thought they wouldn’t be one of those couples whose child was killed by an accident. They thought they wouldn’t be one of those who had to deal with grief and terror in their life, like Jairus and his wife.
You and I can say, well, but Jairus and his wife, Jesus healed her and brought her back to life. Yes. Yes. To do what when she got older? She still had to die. Whether she died at 12 or whether she died at 92, she still had to face what all of us must face, death. Which is why when we’re young, we don’t think too much about it because it’s too far off. It’s only for old people. And it’s not. You know enough people in your life, and you’ve been impacted by people whom you know who have dealt with death. A sudden and evil death, per se, meaning one that did not come as you expected it to come at so many decades later.
It’s the in-between time of the waiting. For Jairus and his wife, they had no idea for what they were waiting, but they would soon find out, no different than my sister-in-law and brother, no different than those people whom you know in your life. For the woman, she knew for what she was waiting, but yet there was so much more for what she was waiting because she had no idea what else God had in plan for her.
That’s why Jeremiah’s words are so appropriate for us. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It’s in the waiting that God uses to drive us to our knees, doesn’t He? Whether we know for what we are waiting, or whether we don’t know for what we are waiting, the waiting is the good thing that God uses to shape your and my faith.
When will the pain end? When will the guilt end? When will I not feel these feelings again? That’s the waiting, isn’t it? It is good to wait. For what? It does not matter. But that the waiting is where God works on you and your faith. What we’re praying about or what we’re praying for in the future is important to you and to Him, but you know what? What shapes you the most is not that thing. What shapes you the most is what God does in the waiting time.
And you, for what are you waiting? Every one of you and I all have that thing that we think about. And if I were to ask you, can you name some things for which you prayed that it took not just months, but years, even decades, to be seen as an answer? Sure. And how many more are we completely unaware because we’re so protected by our own ignorance of not knowing? Though that thing is important to you and it is important to your loving Lord.
What is more important to Him is the waiting where He stretches you, sifts you, and continues to grow you and nurture you faithfully and compassionately. And it is in the waiting that has the most profound implications on your faith, not the receiving of it. The receiving of the end of the bloody discharge for the woman was great, but she still had to face death someday, did she not? The only difference is she faced death without a bloody discharge.
I’m not trying to be glib about it. I’m trying to put things in perspective. No different than Jairus and his wife received back their daughter at 12 years old. Wonderful, but she still has to face death again. And in the meantime, she’s going to face a whole host of things that mom and dad can’t fix for her. Whether it’s her own health, whether it’s her own family, whether it’s her marriage, whether it’s being provided for, you name it.
And it is during the waiting period for all of us concerned that God grows us the most. Jeremiah said very clearly, though He, referring to our God, though He cause grief, He will have compassion. And not just have compassion, but have a compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love. It’s kind of redundant. Steadfast love should say it enough, but it’s the abundance of steadfast love. That’s redundant. It’s overflowing and beyond.
For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. So if He does not willingly, why does He? Because left to ourselves, we would go to hell. Left to ourselves, our pride would take us over and we would see no need to repent. But the waiting, the waiting drives us to our knees to repent. It pushes us to realize we don’t have the answer. We can’t fix it by posturing, planning, and anything else. It is what it is.
And it is the shaping of our faith that has eternal consequences, pushing us to look outside of ourselves, not inside of ourselves. Because where does fear arise? From inside of ourselves, not from outside of ourselves. Outside of ourselves is here. Fear does not arise there. Confidence arises there. Hope arises there. Mercy arises from here, outside of you.
Why else would Jeremiah also say, let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him? Is he some sick, sadistic person? No. When we sit alone and in silence, we have to let God do His work. We have to release our fears. We have to let go of our planning and plotting and thinking and all kinds of things. You know by faith in those promises that He loves you. You know by faith that He will bring you through whatever for which you are waiting. You know by faith that He will never forsake you.
For Jeremiah said, “…the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.” That in and of itself is redundant. “…His mercies never come to an end.” They are new every morning. New every morning. It’s not as if it’s like a tank of gas that keeps going down and you’ve got to get it filled up. It is always full every morning. And that’s why he said, great is your faithfulness. Great for whom? Toward whom? Great is your faithfulness toward me, Jeremiah was saying. And I’m saying to you. Great is His faithfulness to you in your waiting.
Amen. Continue to seek Him while you wait, because He always will draw near to you. Even when you’re not seeking Him, He will draw near to you, because He is a loving Father. He is not an aloof Father. He is an engaged God, not an abstract God.
There is a great psalm that ends like this: Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God. The psalmist is asking himself that question because he’s struggling, isn’t he? Like you and me. And the psalmist knows that even though right now I’m having a hard time having praise come out of these lips, did you hear what he said? I shall again praise Him. It will come.
Peter said it another way. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises, as some count slowness, but He’s patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. The waiting is to bring us to repentance, which drives us back outside of ourselves to where repentance is given forgiveness in Christ.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord, whether we know what is ahead of us or whether we don’t. We wait upon the Lord, and He shapes us in the meantime for His glory and for our good.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.