Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
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Original Manuscript:
We live in a world where it is increasingly difficult to not want everything now. We can view events instantly around the world as the occur. We can have our food delivered to us when we want it. We can go online and have anything delivered to us when we want it.
God does not always work in such instantaneous ways. There's our time and then God's time. We want it now. God knows the value of waiting.
For example, we have the person Jesus heals in our Gospel reading tonight. He waited for 38 years to be healed of his illness. Specifically he waited 38 years by a pool that was supposed to have healing properties, but only if you could be the first in the water when the wind stirred up.
Everything, it seems, is stacked against him.
And then Jesus comes in. The Son of God. God incarnate in the form of a human being. And Jesus heals him.
38 years is worth it for God to come directly to your service. But the sick man is offered more than just that. He is offered the chance to meet God face-to-face. He is offered the chance for relationship. He is offered the chance to have faith and believe.
And while the sick man is offered the chance to come into relationship with God, others are offered that chance too through his story.
Sometimes it seems like we are having to wait too long for God to act, but when that's the case, there is usually a reason. God is often working more things that we can possibly imagine in the moment, and usually we are all the better for waiting.
So be patient. Set your clocks to God's time. In doing so, you'll find that you'll get the thing you needed all along, even if you didn't know it yet.