Exodus 24:12-18; Matthew 17:1-9
Waiting for God. Doesn't it make perfect sense to set up the booths and wait for God right there. To stay and dwell there always. Well God doesn't work that way. All throughout the Old Testament people have marked where God met them. It doesn't ever to be at the same place twice.
In our story from Exodus the people are told to wait for Moses to come back from his encounter with God. What do they do, they become bored, lost, frightened and they make another god who is present to them instead of waiting for Moses to come and bring God to them. They can't wait for Moses, yet Moses waits on God forty days and nights. It may not have seemed that long to him. The people left waiting could wait no longer though. This is a problem for us as well.
We would like an immediate God. The genie God who will give us what we want out of our candy dispenser of wishes. Right, this is how God works. Anything we want we get, anything we need is provided and we are blessed a hundred fold. Well, this hasn't been my experience of God. We wait on God to provide us an answer, we wait through times which are like hell for us, we don't always get what we want, and the blessings we sometimes wonder when they will arrive. This is the reality of an infinite God. It is the reality of free will.
Jesus knows today that Peter's response is out of fear of what is going to happen in the coming days. Peter just acknowledged who Jesus is, and Jesus just shared what that is going to mean: death and the cross. Peter instead of waiting for God wants to encapsulate this safe time. This mountain top of blessing. Let's just stay and forget about waiting for God through the hard stuff. It would all be so easy. Jesus doesn't stay, they have to come down the mountain where suffering and death are waiting.
Why? Why can't it be easy? Why can't it be different than what Jesus predicted? I don't know about you, I know for me when the tough times come is when I learn the value of waiting for God. God shows up in such unexpected ways. In the garden, when all I expected to find was death and there is a richness of surprise in the unexpected rising of the flowers. In the upper room where we gathered for fear of the end of ourselves and couldn't go outside the house to play because danger was lurking and God came there in the voice of the Abused Women's hotline to talk and calm those fears.
It's never what I expected and some I can only see now that I don't live in that world anymore. 'Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord, keep watch take heart." Goes the chant in Taize, a plea to recognize those time when we wait. A plea to take heart even when we are afraid, alone or lost. Waiting for God isn't easy, but it is one of the richest experiences we have. How will you wait for God this Lent?
Waiting for God. Doesn't it make perfect sense to set up the booths and wait for God right there. To stay and dwell there always. Well God doesn't work that way. All throughout the Old Testament people have marked where God met them. It doesn't ever to be at the same place twice.
In our story from Exodus the people are told to wait for Moses to come back from his encounter with God. What do they do, they become bored, lost, frightened and they make another god who is present to them instead of waiting for Moses to come and bring God to them. They can't wait for Moses, yet Moses waits on God forty days and nights. It may not have seemed that long to him. The people left waiting could wait no longer though. This is a problem for us as well.
We would like an immediate God. The genie God who will give us what we want out of our candy dispenser of wishes. Right, this is how God works. Anything we want we get, anything we need is provided and we are blessed a hundred fold. Well, this hasn't been my experience of God. We wait on God to provide us an answer, we wait through times which are like hell for us, we don't always get what we want, and the blessings we sometimes wonder when they will arrive. This is the reality of an infinite God. It is the reality of free will.
Jesus knows today that Peter's response is out of fear of what is going to happen in the coming days. Peter just acknowledged who Jesus is, and Jesus just shared what that is going to mean: death and the cross. Peter instead of waiting for God wants to encapsulate this safe time. This mountain top of blessing. Let's just stay and forget about waiting for God through the hard stuff. It would all be so easy. Jesus doesn't stay, they have to come down the mountain where suffering and death are waiting.
Why? Why can't it be easy? Why can't it be different than what Jesus predicted? I don't know about you, I know for me when the tough times come is when I learn the value of waiting for God. God shows up in such unexpected ways. In the garden, when all I expected to find was death and there is a richness of surprise in the unexpected rising of the flowers. In the upper room where we gathered for fear of the end of ourselves and couldn't go outside the house to play because danger was lurking and God came there in the voice of the Abused Women's hotline to talk and calm those fears.
It's never what I expected and some I can only see now that I don't live in that world anymore. 'Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord, keep watch take heart." Goes the chant in Taize, a plea to recognize those time when we wait. A plea to take heart even when we are afraid, alone or lost. Waiting for God isn't easy, but it is one of the richest experiences we have. How will you wait for God this Lent?
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