Clergy from left, Deacon Amy Schmuck, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill and The Rev. Lynn Finnegan. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com
By The Rev. Lynn Finnegan
Former Associate Rector
Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe
We’ve all been in waiting rooms. Sitting in the waiting room of a doctor or dentist, waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting to board a plane, waiting for the results of an exam or a job interview, waiting for a small child to “do it herself” – all of these are “waiting rooms” we enter on a daily basis. We may feel anxious or annoyed, excited or amused, but we always experience something related to the waiting.
In the days after Jesus’ resurrection, and prior to his ascension, his followers were also in a waiting room, both physically and spiritually. Confused and fearful, they occupied an “in-between” time of uncertainty and unease. Jesus appeared to them several times: at the tomb (looking like a gardener), at the seashore (cooking fish), in their travels (first appearing as a stranger), and in the room where they were hiding (walking through locked doors). Each time, his physicality was certain. They touched the wounds of his crucified body. He ate bread and fish. But each time his divinity was also certain: he walked through locked doors, and he mysteriously came and went. In those early days, resurrection comprehension was significantly beyond the grasp of the disciples.
Franciscan priest and theologian Richard Rohr refers to times of uncertainty and unease in our life, such as that experienced by Jesus’ disciples, as “God’s Waiting Room.” God’s Waiting Room is liminal space; it is a sacred “in-between” time. Jesus’ disciples didn’t seek out this liminal space. Their world turned upside down when Jesus was crucified. Things did not go as they had planned. God’s Waiting Room, though, was necessary for their transformation. It was necessary for their reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit fifty days later at Pentecost.
Because transformation takes place in God’s Waiting Room, Rohr encourages us to embrace this sacred space of liminality, even if it makes us uncertain and uneasy. “We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of ‘business as usual,’” Rohr writes, “and remain patiently on the ‘threshold’ where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin.”
When was the last time you sought God’s sacred Waiting Room? Are you content trapped in normalcy, “the ways things are,” or are you yearning for transformation in Christ? Are you willing to let go of false certitudes and allow a bigger world to be revealed? Jesus’ followers preferred the certitude of a Messiah made in their own image. Jesus, however, ushered them into God’s Waiting Room. There, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were transformed and empowered to spread the Good News of the magnitude of God’s love. Again and again, God also calls us into his Waiting Room, where we risk certitude, risk “being right,” risk loving with abandon, and risk living fully into God’s image of us. What are you waiting for?