Waiting Expectantly
May 8, 2016
Luke 23:50-56
Read Luke 23:50-56
Joseph was not a follower of Jesus or a disciple who had traveled with him. Rather, he was a
member of the Sanhedrin. He was a respected part of the religious leadership. This is probably
part of the reason why Pilate agreed to release Jesus’ body to him. As the Word Bible
Commentary explains:
The bodies of condemned criminals were not always released for burial, especially in
cases of treason. But Pilate had never really been convinced of Jesus’ guilt, and the
body was going here to a respected member of the Sanhedrin, not to Jesus’ family or
his followers. For the body to have stayed on the cross overnight would have been a
violation of Jewish custom (for the most part, the Romans seem to have shown a
sensitivity to this). Joseph’s offer gave Pilate a convenient way of dealing with this area
of Jewish sensibility.
That explains why Pilate said yes, but why did Joseph ask? Joseph was a pious man who was
attuned to God’s Upper Story; that is, God’s plan of creation, redemption, grace, and
reconciliation. Luke sees him in the tradition of Simeon and Anna, the priest and prophetess
who – at the time of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple as an infant – recognized what God was
doing. Like them, Joseph was attentive to what God was doing, open to believing God was
acting in Jesus. By taking Jesus’ body, Joseph was quietly and intentionally complying with
God’s law. It was an act of reverence and respect for the God whom Joseph trusted and
believed, but did not understand. Amazingly, Joseph’s faithfulness also fulfilled God’s prophetic
promises for his anointed one, too. We know that – but it is highly unlikely that those were
Joseph’s intentions as he simply did what he thought was right.
The title of the sermon, “Waiting Expectantly” is a nod to mothers (and mothers-to-be), but it
also makes reference to the line regarding Joseph of Arimathea, “He was waiting expectantly
for the kingdom of God.”
Silence and Emptiness
Take a moment to consider where we are: when Pilate released Jesus’ body to Joseph and
Joseph laid Jesus in the tomb, Jesus was really dead. The drama was over, but time was going
on. Everything was different – they did not know how – but the world kept on. The foundation
of the movement Jesus was leading was gone. Instead of going forward with confidence and
hope, now everything stopped and there was no obvious next step.
I guess the best comparison for us would be the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We were living
in Escondido and I remember Jen coming out to the office we had in the garage and saying to
1
me, “Kim Henson called. Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Towers!” We watched the
news, flipping from station to station, to see if someone could get a handle on what was
happening. As the reports came in of the second plane, then the plane that flew into the
Pentagon, we began to realize that this was a huge moment. I had to go to Riverside for a
meeting with pastors that afternoon. Driving up the I-15, it was desolate. The highway was
mostly empty. Stranger was to not see any airplanes in the skies overhead.
The drama was over, but time was going on. Everything was different – we did not know how –
but the world kept on.
Over the next couple of days, there was a collective silence as everyone stopped to
contemplate, “What now? What just happened and what is the meaning of what just
happened? Where do we go from here? We are not safe.” What do you do when the
foundation is pulled from under you? What do you do then?
Peter Greig, in a book about prayer entitled God On Mute, really gets at the heart of the
experience.
Holy Saturday fascinates me. The Bible tells us almost nothing about this mysterious
day sandwiched between crucifixion and resurrection when God allowed the whole of
creation to live without answers. It’s a day of confusion and silence. Roman Catholics
and many Anglicans strip their altars bare – back to the bones – on Holy Saturday. I
guess it’s the one day in the entire year when the Church has nothing to say. And yet,
although we know so little about it, Holy Saturday seems to me to describe the place in
which many of us live our lives: waiting for God to speak. We know that Jesus died for
us yesterday. We trust that there may be miracles tomorrow. But what of today – this
eternal Sabbath when heaven is silent. Where, we wonder, is God now?
No one really talks about Holy Saturday, yet if we stop and think about it, it’s where
most of us live most of our lives. Holy Saturday is the no-man’s land between
questions and answers, prayers and miracles. It’s where we wait – with a peculiar
mixture of faith and despair – whenever God is silent or life doesn’t make sense.
…It’s not that [God is] saying “yes,” “no” or “not yet” to our prayers; it’s that He’s not
saying anything at all. We pray and pray but God remains silent. We ask for help and
He appears to ignore us. We try to make sense of our situation and there is no
explanation, no revelation, no intimation that God even cares. We may wonder if He’s
there at all. This experience of God’s silence, or even His absence, is not uncommon in
the Christian life – especially among those God uses most powerfully. It is an
experience both epitomized and legitimized by the silence of God on Holy Saturday. (p.
193-194)
That just resonated with me. I know what it is like waiting for God to speak. I know what it is
like to follow where I believe God is leading only to find myself out in the wilderness. Alone. I
2
have prayed, “Really, God? What is this? This does not look at all how I thought it was supposed
to look. What happened? Do you hear me? Are you there?”
The tendency is for Christians to jump from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, but that misses the
emptiness and hollowness and silence of Saturday. We would like to skip that emptiness and
hollowness, but that is just denial. For many of us, we know that emptiness and hollowness and
silence of Saturday all too well. It is more the norm than the exception. I am pausing to dwell
here today because it is important to name it. It is important to confess that this is a part of the
Christian life. It is important to identify and recognize it so that when it happens – or, if you are
experiencing it right now – you have an awareness of what it is and what you can do.
Many Christians dwell in the Saturday hollowness because they cannot reconcile the victorious
life they hear proclaimed and sung in the church with the struggles they experience day to day.
The promise of new life, grace-filled living, and being “more than a conqueror” through Jesus
seems far away from the bills that have to be paid, the loneliness of broken relationships, the
pain of illness, the fear of death or of dreams lost. Have you ever been there? Have you ever
felt out of step with the church because you just cannot connect with the promises or triumph
or happy tunes? If so, you are not alone: I have been there. That may sound strange as the one
responsible for leading worship; but it is true. There are time when getting up to proclaim the
gospel is incredibly difficult and an act of obedient faith because I am not feeling hopeful or
joyous at all.
I recently posted a video on the church’s Facebook page of a conversation between Eugene
Petersen, the author of The Message translation of the Bible, and Bono, the lead singer of U2.
They were discussing the Psalms. In the midst of that conversation, Bono talked about his
admiration for the fullness of the Psalms, including the Psalms that express despair, loneliness,
hurt, fear, and pain. He then lamented the lack of that same richness in modern Christian art.
I would love if this conversation would inspire people who are writing [with] these
beautiful voices, these beautiful gospel songs [to] write a song about their bad
marriage. Write a song about how they’re pissed off at the government. Because that’s
what God wants from you. The truth…and that truthfulness…will blow things apart.
Why I’m suspicious of Christians is because of this lack of realism. And I’d like to see
more of that in life, and in art, and in music.”
What Bono is saying is that the hollowness, emptiness, and aloneness Christians experience is
not a reflection of unfaithfulness or inadequacy. It is just the opposite: crying out to God in the
midst of those circumstances is the essence of faithfulness. That is why the Psalms are so
helpful; they give voice to our pain and angst and raise those things before God.

“Rise up, O LORD! Deliver me, O my God!” (Psalm 3:7)

“Answer me when I call, O God of my right!” (Psalm 4:1)
3

“Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God, for to you I pray.” (Psalm 5:1-2)

“Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble”
(Psalm 10:1)

“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from
me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!” (Psalm 13:1-3)

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me,
from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by
night, but find no rest.” (Psalm 22:1-2)
Those are just a sample of Saturday psalms. Have you ever been there? I have.
Waiting expectantly is a convicted perspective of trusting in the Lord. Take note: it may be
counter-intuitive, but whenever God is silent or life doesn’t make sense, the Psalms show us
that it is a time to turn more to God rather than to walk away in disappointment. In each of
those psalms, there is a turning point where God’s faithfulness is remembered.

“Deliverance belongs to the LORD; may your blessing be on your people!” (Psalm 3:8)

“I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in
safety.” (Psalm 4:8)

“You bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover them with favor as with a shield.” (Psalm
5:12)

“But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief, that you may take it into your
hands; the helpless commit themselves to you.” (Psalm 10:14)

“But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.” (Psalm
13:5)

“For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face
from me, but heard when I cried to him.” (Psalm 22:24)
In other words, trust in God is not dependent upon our immediate circumstances. In fact, faith
often requires persevering through adverse circumstances. Faith means waiting with
expectation for the kingdom of God – trusting in the emptiness that God will act.
Rejoice in the Lord – waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God
Paul wrote to the Philippians from prison. He exhorted them to “Rejoice in the Lord always;
again I will say, rejoice.” He told them to “rejoice in the Lord always,” while he was in chains.
His circumstances were not really source material for rejoicing.
Some of you may remember Corrie Ten Boom’s story: The Hiding Place was a huge best-seller in
the early 1970’s. Corrie Ten Boom’s family lived in the Netherlands. Her father was the most
4
recent generation of a long line of watchmakers. After a fairly normal childhood – with both
joys and sorrows that occur in all lives – things turned when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands
in 1940.
The family had a strong faith and a long history as part of the Dutch Reformed Church. They felt
obligated to help their Jewish friends in every they could. Their home became a center for
resistance efforts; more specifically, rescue efforts for Jews. The family would hide Jews in their
home to keep them safe. One day a man asked Corrie for help locating his wife who had been
arrested. Though she was suspicious, she agreed. It turned out he was a spy. The Ten Boom
home was raided, the family was arrested, and they were sent to prisons. It is worth noting that
the Jews they were sheltering were not discovered and escaped.
After a few months in prison, Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were transferred to a concentration
camp. They were forced to work in extraordinarily difficult conditions. Worse yet, they began to
be transferred from one concentration camp to another. (info drawn from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hiding_Place_(biography))
During her time in the concentration camps, the sisters fixated on Paul’s exhortation to rejoice
in the Lord always. She wrote about it this way in The Hiding Place,
Barracks 8 was in the quarantine compound. Next to us – perhaps as a deliberate
warning to newcomers – were located the punishment barracks. From there, all day
long and often into the night, came the sounds of hell itself. They were not the sounds
of anger, or of any human emotion, but of a cruelty altogether detached: blows
landing in regular rhythm, screams keeping pace. We would stand in our ten-deep
ranks with our hands trembling at our sides, longing to jam them against our ears, to
make the sounds stop.
It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery,
too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make
sense, something else grew too heavy.
Yet, in the midst of the suffering, the women prisoners around Corrie and Betsie found
comfort in the little Bible studies they held in the barracks. Corrie writes they gathered
around the Bible “like waifs clustered around a blazing fire…The blacker the night
around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.”
When they were moved to Barracks 28, Corrie was horrified by the fact that their
reeking, straw-bed platforms swarmed with fleas. How could they live in such a place?
It was Betsie who discovered God’s answer: ‘”Rejoice always, pray constantly, give
thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” That’s it, Corrie!
That’s His answer. “Give thanks in all circumstances!” That’s what we can do. We can
start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!’
5
“I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room…”
They thanked God for the fact they were together. They thanked God they had a Bible.
They even thanked God for the horrible crowds of prisoners, that more people would
be able to hear God’s Word. And then, Betsie thanked God for the fleas. “The fleas!
This was too much. ‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.’“
‘”Give thanks in all circumstances,”‘ she quoted. ‘It doesn’t say, “in pleasant
circumstances.” Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.’
“And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was
sure Betsie was wrong.”
It turned out that Betsie was not wrong; the fleas were a nuisance, but a blessing after
all. The women were able to have Bible studies in the barracks with a great deal of
freedom, never bothered by supervisors coming in and harassing them. They finally
discovered that it was the fleas that kept those supervisors out. Through those fleas,
God protected the women from abuse and harassment. Dozens of desperate women
were free to hear the comforting, hope-giving Word of God. Through those fleas, God
protected the women from much worse things and made sure they had their deepest,
truest needs met.
See more at: http://prayer-coach.com/2009/11/29/thank-god-for-the-fleas-by-corrieten-boom/#sthash.xaKLBbWF.dpuf
Now, please understand: rejoicing in the Lord is more than the power of positive thinking. It is
more than simply finding a silver lining. Rather, the key is “in the Lord.” Rejoice in the Lord. It
was not rejoicing for fleas; rather, it was how God was affording the opportunity for the Bible to
be shared and hope to be encouraged. The bites still hurt. Even so, they held on to what
mattered most. Their peace and their hope was in waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.
So let me bring this back home to all of us. Where are you today? Have you ever felt out of step
with the church because you just cannot connect with the promises or triumph or happy tunes?
Are you living in the Saturday hollowness because you cannot reconcile the victorious life you
hear proclaimed and sung in the church with the pain, doubt, and silence of God you know all
too well? If so, commit yourself to waiting with expectation for the kingdom of God. How?
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” Again, how? Know, “the Lord is near.”
God is faithful and true. Remember and rejoice in God’s promises. Hold fast even when the
world tells you otherwise. Trust God’s word even when heaven is silent and God seems far
away. Wait for God to speak. Wait with expectation for the kingdom of God. Amen.
8:30 – Prayer and invitation to offering
10:00 – Invitation to offering
6