Every weekday, I dread it’s coming. I see it rising up ahead. No matter what I do, I cannot get past
it. And when I hit it, it stops me dead
in my tracks. Until it passes, I have
no other choice but to wait. And the
agony of it all, the struggle, the frustration.
I know I’m not alone.
Other surely face these challenges, including all those who face with me
this exasperating place. If you don’t
face my particular place, you likely face one much like it. Have you ever faced a red light that seems
to never turn green? Oh yes, all the
other cars are going, but not you. No,
you wait and wait and wait. This week I
even timed my red light. Every weekday
I have to wait at that light for at least two whole minutes!
Now, I’m being a little tongue in cheek here. But I’m also being honest. I hate to wait. And these days require a lot of waiting,
waiting to see what the virus does, waiting to find out when we can reopen,
waiting for the day, whenever it will be, when things get back to some
semblance of normal. And as I wait, I
realize, I have a lot to be grateful for.
I’m not sick or in a hospital or caring for anyone who is sick. I’m not facing as deep a financial crisis as
many others are. I’m not grieving the
loss of a loved one gone far too early.
I can’t imagine how painful the waiting through those challenges and
losses must be.
But here’s the truth, all of us, in one way or another
are waiting. And waiting can be hard,
and for a number of us, even terrifyingly hard. And in the waiting, it can be all too easy
to fear the worst, to wonder when we will come out, to even begin to wonder if
we will. And when those moments come,
God points the way, the way to comfort and strength, the way to patience and
hope, the way to a day when these challenging days will end. And how do you find that way? In those words, God tells you. Let’s hear what God has to say.
Heck, this virus has messed everything up. It messed Easter up. It is messing with restaurants, theatres,
even Disney World. And worst of all, it
is messing up the lives of thousands, even millions of people in awful,
heart-breaking ways. You read the
stories of those who have lost their lives.
Or maybe you know it more closely than that. You know a friend or family member that died
or who is battling the virus right now.
And in the midst of it all, who doesn’t yearn for it all to stop? Who doesn’t say to themselves? Enough already.
Yet, in one way or another, it seems that this virus
will be hanging around a bit longer.
And as everyone waits for some good news, some signs of hope, some light
at the end of this all too long tunnel, you can get discouraged. You can begin to wonder. How will we make it back? How will things be different when we do? Yet in these words, and not only these words,
God gives us the perspective we all need.
God tells you. Life always wins
over death, always. But you need to
have the patience to wait for the life to come.
In the days, that the prophet Isaiah shared these
words, things did not look good at all. The
people of Israel had literally lost their country. They weren’t even living there. The empire that conquered them had exiled
them to their capital city, Babylon. And
none of them had any idea if they would ever get to return, if they would ever have
a nation again. Yet in the middle of
this awful moment, the prophet Isaiah writes these words.
He faces the reality of what they face, how they
thirst for hope, and yet seem to find none.
But then he says this. This
thirst, this dryness will not be the end of your story. No, the waters will flow again. Even in the mountains where water can be
scarce, the water will flow. Even the desert will have pools of water. And then he gets to the climax. He talks about the trees, and not just any
trees, the trees that everyone loved. He
talks about the olive tree and the cypress and the pine, a hit list of the best
trees of Israel. He says. God will place those trees everywhere, even in
the desert, so everyone will know God did this, no one else.
Yet, get this, in sharing this vision, he is talking
about a place thousands of miles away, a place that it looks like they’ll never
ever get back to. Is he
delusional? It can seem like it. Until you realize, they did get back there. It took a while, but they got back.
And so, God is telling them, this exile, this loss
will not be the last word. God is
saying. My love, my faithfulness, my life-giving
abundance will be that last word. This
too shall pass. In fact, that word pass
reminds me of one of my favorite preacher jokes. It
goes like this.
A preacher once asked an old farmer in his church, his
favorite verse. The farmer replied
immediately. Well, preacher, my favorite
verse has always been. “It came to
pass.” The preacher puzzled asks. “Why that one?” And the farmer replies, as if it was
obvious. “The Lord said it didn’t come
to stay. He said. It came to
pass.”
And as strange as it may sound, this too will
pass. But it won’t pass tomorrow. It
won’t pass on any timetable we set. But
it will pass. And that’s the problem, human beings get
impatient. We want things to change
quickly, whether it be red lights or viruses.
And when they don’t, we get impatient.
We get discouraged. We lose
perspective. But in these words that
you just heard God gives you the perspective you need to have. You need the perspective of the myrtle and
of the olive and of the cedar. You need
the perspective of trees.
You see. Trees
live a long time, as long as 5,000 years.
That means. Trees have perspective.
Tees are willing to wait. In
some deep way, they know, if you wait, life come. They know even life comes in the worst that the
world throws at you. That’s why I put up
on the screen, the picture of this stump.
Do you see what is growing out of it?
It’s a little tree. You can cut
a tree down, and it will still live. Trees know. Life will always win out if you’re
willing to wait.
In fact, one tree did that for two thousand
years. In the early 60s archeologists
were excavating the great fortress of Masada in Southern Israel. That fortress lies a thousand feet above the
Judean desert, as barren a place as you can imagine. And there they found a jar containing date
seeds. They did some carbon dating and
discovered they were about two thousand years old. Then they stuck them in a drawer and forget
them for about 40 years. Then someone
had a crazy idea. “Why don’t we plant
them?”
So, they did.
And go figure, with a little help, the seeds sprouted. The palm not only grew, it became a daddy. It pollinated a female date palm, and now
they have date palm children. They call
the tree Methesulah, who was the oldest man in the Bible. Here’s a picture of Methesulah.
And you don’t need to go back two thousand years to
realize that. You can go back to thelast time something like this happened, 1918.
That’s the year a flu pandemic hit the world. It killed at least 50 million. That’s 5 out of every 100 people on the
entire planet at that time. But it gets
worse. Let me just paint the
picture.
Before that flu happened, things had been going bad already. When World War I erupted in 1914, it messed
up the economy so bad, the stock market closed for four months. And then in early 1918, our nation got in the
war, and then the pandemic hit. In fact,
the war helped spread it. It likely
began in a military camp in Kansas, and when the soldiers left to fight, they
carried the flu with them. And that flu, when it got really bad, in a
space of six months, killed 30 million people.
And it didn’t kill old people. It
killed the young those in their 20s and 30s.
And then after that pandemic ended, our nation went
into a huge recession followed by a depression. Over three years, our economy shrunk by
almost 40%. And the government made
things worse. It didn’t raise spending. It cut it by 20%. And
the Federal Reserve didn’t cut interest rates.
It raised them. And on top of that the Ku Klux Klan rose up
and caused hundreds of thousands of African Americans to flee North.
Yet in the next five years after all of that, what
happened? The mass-produced automobile
happened. The airplane happened, as did
the radio, the assembly line, the refrigerator, the electric razor, the washing
machine, the jukebox, the television, and I could go on. The stock market went up 500%! America entered the Roaring 20s, one of the
most vibrant, dynamic decades in our history.
And when those blacks fled north, many ended up in Harlem. And there they created the Harlem Renaissance,
that created some of the greatest music and literature in our history. Now it wasn’t perfect. It did
end with a big crash. But holy
smokes. Don’t you get it?
Life came back from a war, a pandemic, a recession, a
depression. It took time. But it came
back. Because life always, always wins,
if you are willing to wait.
And thank God, that God is willing to wait. God has the patience, after all, to wait on
us. For, why did Israel end up in
exile? It ended there because again and
again, they refused to listen to God, to care for the poor and needy. Yet God never gave up on them. God promised them that life would return,
that his love would never leave.
And sadly, in the years 1918 and before, much of that
death and heartbreak came because of terrible decisions that people made. Yet even there, life found a way even in the
midst of death. Doctors and nurses gave
their lives to care for those sick. Deeds of mercy and courage occurred even in
the midst of a senseless war. And people
of faith found ways to move forward in hope even in the darkest of those
days.
And they found that hope because they followed a God
who knew his way out of the grave. They found that hope because they had
experienced the love of a God who in Jesus went to death and beyond. They found that hope in a Savior who even as
we killed him prayed for us, even forgave us.
They found that hope in a God who never, ever gives up on us, who never
leaves us even when we leave him. For
with God, his love always has the last word.
His love is always a word of life, a word of hope, a hope that nothing,
not even death defeats. So, in these days, live in that hope. If God can create a tree that can grow and
have tree babies after 2000 years, if God can give his life and defeat death
for us as he does it, then God will bring us through these days. It may not happen on our timetable, but it
will happen. God will bring life out of this crisis. God always does. So,
until that day comes, live with the perspective of trees. Wait and hope. Love and care. Serve and work. And trust in this God whose way always leads
to life, even in these days.
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