While We Wait

One year for Lent at the youth group I helped lead during undergrad, the students put together a Stations of the Cross meditation in which each station or scene from Jesus' Passion was set to a song. The songs they chose helped humanize and make relevant to our times what the people in each scene might have felt, and what we might feel as we enter into Jesus' death and resurrection during Lent.

I recently heard the song "While We Wait" by Amanda Cook. It's a meditative song that reminds us of God's presence through the chorus that repeats, "You're with us while we wait." I think it could be played to help us reflect on the Station of the Cross in which Jesus is laid in the tomb, when his followers didn't know what else to do besides hope and wait for three days to see if what Jesus had promised would be true.

As we also wait for Jesus to return, we know: Waiting can feel like such a mundane thing sometimes. I think of all the times in day-to-day life that we wait: in line, for a meeting to start, for the traffic light to change. Cook's song helps me reflect on the fact that Jesus' love is so deep and consistent for us, that he wants to share in even these quiet, seemingly mundane times with us. He wants to be there, in line, at the meeting, at the traffic light, next to us, being two people next to each other. We can talk with him about things that matter or about things that don't, or we don't have to say anything; that's the beauty of a love that is deep. Passing thoughts and presence are enough.

Of course, there are also the deeper things we wait for, like the healing of ourselves, the ones we love, our nation, our world. We wait for peace. We wait for understanding. We wait for justice. This type of waiting, to me, seems more active, as we have a pivotal role in bringing about what we wait and hope for.

Nevertheless, our Lord is with us while we wait and work in these substantive circumstances, too. He is right here with us, in us, through us, as we are with him, in him, through him. I love what Deuteronomy 4:7 reminds us: "For what nation is there that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?"

So let us call upon him. As Jessie Miller writes in her essay "Freedom Through Trust," "He longs for companionship with us and has unfazed patience to build the trust it requires." In the big and small, he is patient, attentive, steadfast. He wants us to invite him in, so he can show us he bears good fruit that lasts.

As we live life abundant throughout this Lent and remember the ways Jesus kept his promises to his earliest followers, let us remember Jesus' faithfulness to us, all of the ways he fulfills, and that in the mundane and meaningful, he is here while we wait.