Scripture Reflections

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
    but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. (Prov. 13:12)
 
A friend shared this verse with me recently, in response to my fears and weariness regarding our housing situation and the process of learning Kazakh. It was the first part of the verse that hit home with me initially—it was a true diagnosis of my heart. But now I am struck even more by the second part of the verse: “A desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” We know who the Tree of Life is, and He has even called us to abide in him as his branches (Jn. 15:5)! We know—or ought to know—where to go when hope is deferred, when we have unfulfilled desires. And yet we so easily forget. We even hesitate to allow him, his presence with us, to be the fulfillment of our desire. After all, we truly feel the need of whatever it is we are desiring—a stable, rooted home; success in our endeavors; clarity for the future. Do we trust our Father to remember what we need if we rest in him and stop grumbling to him? Can we, with Jesus, sleep in the boat in the middle of the storm (Matt. 8:24)?
 
Over the last few weeks, the Lord has used a line from the Ash Wednesday litany to convict me particularly of this lack of trust:
 
For our self-pity and impatience, and our envy of those we think more fortunate than ourselves;
Lord have mercy upon us: For we have sinned against you.
 
Our family is listening to Bach’s oratorio of Saint Matthew’s Passion for the first time this Lent. Bach set to music passages from the Last Supper to the resurrection, along with prayerful reflections on what is happening. The oratorio opens with a chorus:
 
Come, you daughters, help me wail!
Look! Whom? The Bridegroom.
Look at him! How? He’s like a lamb!
Look! What? See his patience.
Look! Where? At our guilt.
See him, in love and grace
He’s carrying the wooden cross himself!
 
“Look! What? See his patience.” The Lord used this line to give me a charge as we wait for Easter this year, which for our family is also a time of waiting for the provision of a long-term home here in Kazakhstan and anxiously anticipating language evaluations, where Asher and I will find out the results of the study we’ve put in over the last two and a half years. Impatience is a strong temptation, even though there’s clearly no hope there. Impatience with the housing process leads me to despair, to believing we will never be settled. Impatience with language learning also leads to despair—I’d rather quit and not sit for the evaluation than hear that I’ve learned as little as I feel I have.  But where I would in my own nature fight the temptation to impatience by working hard to drum up patience and trust, the Lord has given me this charge: look at Jesus, see his patience.
 
When Jesus told the parable of the fig tree in the reading from Luke 13 this past Sunday, he told it differently than he does his other parables. He left us hanging—what happened? Did the fig tree bear fruit? Did the vinedresser see fruit from his patience and care? And when Jesus healed the bent woman, he also went about her healing differently than he did with others. He saw her, he called her over, he spoke words of release and healing, he laid his hands on her. She was as unable to affect her own healing or even to ask for it as the fig tree was to bear fruit. But she responds: she comes to Jesus when he calls her, she hears his voice, she does not shrink from his touch, and she receives the healing offered—she is made straight, and glorifies God! You and I are also bent and in bondage, but perhaps we don’t see the particular sin or disability the Lord would heal us from, or we may be too weary and sick at heart to hope for healing. Do you hear Jesus calling you? Go to him in prayer, in his Word, and in his Church, and receive the sacraments of grace. He will speak peace and healing, he will lay his hands on you, and you will be made straight.
 
Hannah