Waiting for the Word

The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs
Proper 8, Year B
Mark 5:21-43
Psalm 130

My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen for the morning; *
      more than watchmen for the morning.

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, there was a great crowd waiting for him. And in that crowd were Jairus, the synagogue official with the sick twelve-year-old daughter, and an unnamed woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. We don’t know who else was waiting for Jesus, but Mark tells us those two were waiting. I wonder what that waiting was like? I wonder if Jairus and the unnamed sick woman thought of Psalm 130 while they waited?

Psalm 130 is a waiting psalm, after all.

Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice;
      let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss,
      O Lord, who could stand?
For there is forgiveness with you;
      therefore you shall be feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits for him;
      in his word is my hope.

Those are the words of someone who has waited for a word from the Lord. Have you ever done that? Waited for a word from the Lord, I mean. I have. Have you? I was waiting for a word from the Lord a little over three years ago, when I got on a plane in Hartford headed to Baltimore, a city that I only knew from changing planes in BWI. I was coming here for a final interview with Arianne and to meet with some of you for the first time. At that time, I had no idea what the Lord’s word was going to be, whether I was going to be called as your curate or not, but I knew that I was waiting for it. Before the weekend was over, I was longing for it, in fact, more than watchmen for the morning. More than watchmen for the morning. Have you ever been in a situation like that, waiting for a word from the Lord?

As the lectionary would have it, these are the exact texts I was supposed to preach on my first Sunday here. I say supposed to because, if you’ll remember, my first Sunday at Good Shepherd wasn’t a typical Sunday. Literally as I was finishing typing my sermon, most of us lost power in the derecho that hit Baltimore at the end of June 2012. On Saturday, the church didn’t have power, and Arianne warned me that I needed to be ready to preach something short, off the cuff, in case we ended up worshipping outside, which we did. I looked that that unpreached sermon this past week, and I’m glad I never preached it. It was a decent sermon, the sort of earnest thing that you preach when you’re fresh out of seminary. It was all about explaining why some people are healed when others aren’t. Why Jesus heals the unnamed woman and Jairus’ daughter but doesn’t always heal those loved ones for whom we pray. But the truth is, I can’t explain that. Coming back to this gospel text, three years later, I’m much less confident in my ability to explain everything neatly to you. The truth is that I can’t. Those words from God that we all wait for aren’t always easy to understand, are they? Today, I’m much less concerned with explaining Jesus to you than I am with you meeting him.

Because that’s what Jairus, his daughter, and the unnamed woman do. They meet Jesus. They come to know him personally, and in knowing him, they find the plenteous redemption and mercy that they need. That I need. That we all need. What I need, what we all need, isn’t an explanation; it’s a relationship. And relationships, as wonderful as they are, change us. That’s, I think, why there’s that odd line in our Psalm this morning: For there is forgiveness with you; therefore you shall be feared. Forgiveness is a scary thing. It makes us vulnerable, both when we forgive and when we are forgiven. Both require us to let go of control. Both change us. Forgiveness goes hand in hand with repentance, and repentance means changing.

But that’s what Jesus did; he changed people. He changed Jairus, his daughter, and the unnamed woman in our reading this morning. They were changed for the better, but I wonder if that change cost them anything? It cost the unnamed woman less than the doctors had, at least monetarily, but I wonder if there were other costs? Jesus certainly changed Peter and the other disciples, and there were costs. The fearful Peter of the Gospels because the fearless leader in the Acts of the Apostles, and Peter died a martyr’s death. Those words we are waiting on from the Lord can be immensely comforting, but they can also be, at the very same time, immensely threatening.

But they occur within a conversation, within a relationship, within our Psalm’s promise that with the Lord there is mercy, plenteous redemption, and forgiveness of sins. That’s why we wait for them so eagerly.

We need to meet Jesus this morning. I need to meet Jesus this morning. I don’t know what word you’re waiting on from the Lord this morning. I don’t know what the answer will be. But I know for me, singing helps. So let’s step out on a limb this morning and end in song:

Out of the deep I call
unto thee, O Lord.
Consider well my plea,
and my longing soul.

Amen.