In the Waiting Room

---

This piece was written for the December issue of our church’s newsletter, Grace & Peace.

One day a few years ago, I found myself sitting on the first floor of a doctor’s building, talking to a lady named Darlene. It was a few weeks before Christmas, and rain was blowing against the big windows, wet and bitter. She had sat down across from me with a breakfast wrap in her hand and bags under her eyes.

She told me her husband had died six years ago, she had six children who were scattered all over the country, and grandchildren who were attending elite schools like Harvard. Yet with all that family, she sat there alone. Half an hour passed before I realized Darlene wasn’t waiting on the doctor. She’d just come for a cup of coffee, a breakfast wrap, and hungry for a conversation with someone.

We all find ourselves in some sort of waiting room, don’t we? Waiting to get married. Waiting to have children. Waiting for the children to grow up, move out, get married, and come home again for Christmas. Sometimes, we wait for things we can’t put into our hands— like peace, rest, joy, better sleep, or a close friend.

In Luke’s account of Christ’s birth, he tells of Simeon and Anna in the temple, who were waiting for the consolation of their people, Israel. These were folks who had waited a long, long time.

“Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25).

---

“And coming at that very hour [Anna] began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

To hold little Jesus in their arms was to take up the Yes and Amen to all their hopes and prayers. At long last – after centuries of slavery, wilderness, wickedness, exile, terrible kings and unjust judges – the true Redeemer was here in their hands.

He came, both to enter their darkness and to defeat it (Jn. 1:9). We need both of these realities.

We watch this unfold when Jesus’s friend, Lazarus, died. Jesus walked onto the scene of Mary and Martha’s suffering and wept with them. Then, He did something about it. He reversed the sadness of the situation, silencing suffering and death in Mary and Martha’s lives—at least, for the moment. 

The same Good Shepherd steps into our waiting rooms.

He not only diagnoses our deepest problem, but He offers eternal healing—Righteousness and Resurrection Life. We may not have the full report of what it is we’re waiting on, but like Mary and Martha, we have something far better:

We have Immanuel—God with us—in the waiting room (Matt. 1:23).

---

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

~ Hebrews 4:15-16

---