Changed in the Waiting
A Remote Place
December 18, 2024
SCRIPTURE
MATTHEW 14:13-21
As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said,
“This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late.
Send the crowd's away, so they can go to the villages
and buy themselves some food.”
Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away.
You give them something to eat.”
—MATTHEW 14:15-16
MATTHEW 14:13-21
As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said,
“This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late.
Send the crowd's away, so they can go to the villages
and buy themselves some food.”
Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away.
You give them something to eat.”
—MATTHEW 14:15-16
It seems God reserves some of God’s best work for the remote places. Time and time again, deserts and wildernesses are the backdrop for the most surprising of God’s gifts. Like the newly freed Israelites who received daily manna in the desert, the thousands who followed Jesus into this remote place did not need to leave it in order to be well fed. When we travel with the Good Shepherd, the wilderness can be a surprising source of joy for us as well.
In March 2020, the whole world was plunged deep into wilderness as COVID lockdowns began and life as we knew it ground to a halt. We were far removed from our day-to-day routines, from our ability to gather, and from our sense of certainty and well-being. And all this was accompanied by suffering and grief for those who experienced the reality of the illness and the death it too often brought. It was indeed a time of darkness and waiting, with very little knowledge of when it would ever get better.
The congregation I was pastoring at the time in Oklahoma City had a habit of taking on one practice a week to live out what we heard in Sunday's sermon. Following the saddest Easter service I’ve ever experienced, in which we all huddled around screens in our own living spaces and watched a pre-recorded service preached to an empty room, we pastors invited people into a practice of looking for signs of life. The resurrection, we said, means that death does not get the last word. So even in the midst of ongoing lockdowns, rising death tolls, and the crippling effects of isolation, we were determined to find signs of new life and joy somewhere, somehow.
We created a way for people to share their findings on social media so we could see and be encouraged by one another's experiences. Thanks be to God, we began to find what we were looking for. In fact, we found so much that we quickly realized one week of this practice was not enough, so we kept it up all through the seven-week season of Easter. In those weeks our congregation learned to see and celebrate gifts in all kinds of unexpected places: wildflowers in bloom, handwritten notes, weekday bike rides on empty streets, everlasting sourdough starter, shared packages of toilet paper, school lunches prepared and delivered, sidewalk chalk messages left for passersby. Some of the gifts we found were there all along—we’d just been too busy to notice.
But the most surprising gifts were those that were specific to the COVID-imposed wilderness. At a time when it would have been easy to think only of one’s own needs, every creative act to care for another was worthy of celebration. People picked up medication and dropped it off on porches; others made deliveries of food and care packages; some donated their government stimulus checks to those who had lost jobs; many wrote notes of encouragement to healthcare professionals. By lamenting together the suffering and injustice of the pandemic, we found ways to offer and receive hope. Together we experienced the most unexpected and subversive kind of joy in the very same places as our grief.
The joy we found did not make our waiting go faster or our wilderness less present. But it did sustain us and empower us to move differently in it. We cannot deny that the isolation and loss of the pandemic have marked us all forever. But in that little community our shared, surprising encounters with joy also shaped us in beautiful ways. This happens to all of us in the wilderness, I think. The gifts we are given in these most remote places do more than fill our bellies. They broaden our expectations and teach us to be open to the possibility of joy, even in the places we'd least like to be.
In March 2020, the whole world was plunged deep into wilderness as COVID lockdowns began and life as we knew it ground to a halt. We were far removed from our day-to-day routines, from our ability to gather, and from our sense of certainty and well-being. And all this was accompanied by suffering and grief for those who experienced the reality of the illness and the death it too often brought. It was indeed a time of darkness and waiting, with very little knowledge of when it would ever get better.
The congregation I was pastoring at the time in Oklahoma City had a habit of taking on one practice a week to live out what we heard in Sunday's sermon. Following the saddest Easter service I’ve ever experienced, in which we all huddled around screens in our own living spaces and watched a pre-recorded service preached to an empty room, we pastors invited people into a practice of looking for signs of life. The resurrection, we said, means that death does not get the last word. So even in the midst of ongoing lockdowns, rising death tolls, and the crippling effects of isolation, we were determined to find signs of new life and joy somewhere, somehow.
We created a way for people to share their findings on social media so we could see and be encouraged by one another's experiences. Thanks be to God, we began to find what we were looking for. In fact, we found so much that we quickly realized one week of this practice was not enough, so we kept it up all through the seven-week season of Easter. In those weeks our congregation learned to see and celebrate gifts in all kinds of unexpected places: wildflowers in bloom, handwritten notes, weekday bike rides on empty streets, everlasting sourdough starter, shared packages of toilet paper, school lunches prepared and delivered, sidewalk chalk messages left for passersby. Some of the gifts we found were there all along—we’d just been too busy to notice.
But the most surprising gifts were those that were specific to the COVID-imposed wilderness. At a time when it would have been easy to think only of one’s own needs, every creative act to care for another was worthy of celebration. People picked up medication and dropped it off on porches; others made deliveries of food and care packages; some donated their government stimulus checks to those who had lost jobs; many wrote notes of encouragement to healthcare professionals. By lamenting together the suffering and injustice of the pandemic, we found ways to offer and receive hope. Together we experienced the most unexpected and subversive kind of joy in the very same places as our grief.
The joy we found did not make our waiting go faster or our wilderness less present. But it did sustain us and empower us to move differently in it. We cannot deny that the isolation and loss of the pandemic have marked us all forever. But in that little community our shared, surprising encounters with joy also shaped us in beautiful ways. This happens to all of us in the wilderness, I think. The gifts we are given in these most remote places do more than fill our bellies. They broaden our expectations and teach us to be open to the possibility of joy, even in the places we'd least like to be.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION, DISCUSSION, AND PRAYER
What surprising gifts can you identify that have brought joy in the remote places of your own life?
Where do you need to ask for the Spirit’s help to recognize good gifts even in the wilderness?
What gifts from your past or present are you noticing today?
What surprising gifts can you identify that have brought joy in the remote places of your own life?
Where do you need to ask for the Spirit’s help to recognize good gifts even in the wilderness?
What gifts from your past or present are you noticing today?