And then we wait...

The Psalmist says "Wait on the Lord..." and if you check a concordance, you find these words echoed throughout the Scriptures.  But we do not like waiting.  Though it is awkward for us, it was terrible for the disciples who waited that first Holy Saturday.  What they had seen on Good Friday etched in their minds and hearts a picture of death so powerful they forgot what Jesus had told them.  In the grip of loss, they gathered together a few, hid in the homes for some others, and did what all of us so much of our lives.  They waited.

Our waiting is far different.  We wait not as those who do not know the outcome of the story but as those who do not want to wait to celebrate what we already know to be true.  And for too many Christians, there is no waiting at all.  They drive by the cross with a nod and buzz off to the party without so much as a moment of somber reflection and hopeful waiting.  I am sorry for them.  They are too busy to wait on the Lord for this awkward day between the Friday we call Good and the Sunday that transforms our view of life.  They are too busy for the Lord.  Period.

This waiting is good.  This waiting is the needful time to connect the death that pays sin's terrible cost and the life that death cannot overcome.  It is not that Easter makes up for or balances out Good Friday.  They go together.  This time of waiting allows us the time to connect this death the innocent dies for the guilty with the life He gives to the dying.  Wait on the Lord and you find the surprise of grace!  Always.

Tonight at the Vigil we will wait upon the Lord around the font where He bind us to Good Friday and Easter.  We will carry the Light into the darkness, the Light the darkness cannot overcome.  We will hear the story of God's deliverance spread over generations until it comes in the flesh of His Son.  We will gather around the font and witness 7 individuals receive its blessed gift of life, identity, and grace (2 adults, 5 children).  And we will anticipate the dawn by rejoicing in our Easter victory.  What a wonderful bridge from waiting to celebration!