Holy Week Waiting
Holy Week Waiting
Learning How to Wait Well
Holy Week is full of waiting.
On Palm Sunday, people lined the road, watching and wondering.
“Who is this?”
“Will He pass by here?”
There was anticipation in the air—but also uncertainty.
Then comes Good Friday.
Waiting in confusion.
Waiting in grief.
Waiting as everything seems to fall apart.
And then there’s Silent Saturday.
The kind of waiting that feels heavy.
Quiet.
Uncertain.
The kind of waiting where nothing makes sense.
A Life of Waiting
The truth is, much of our lives are lived in that same space.
Waiting for a text.
Waiting for a diagnosis.
Waiting for answers.
Waiting for something to change.
We are always waiting for something.
So the real question isn’t if we wait.
It’s this:
What kind of waiter are you?
How Do You Wait?
When you’re in the middle of uncertainty, how do you respond?
Do you become restless—constantly looking for movement, trying to fix something?
Do you start imagining outcomes, playing out every possibility?
Do you analyze everything, trying to make sense of what’s happening?
Or do you turn to others, trying to hold people together in the moment?
We all wait differently.
And Holy Week reminds us—how we wait matters.
Waiting in the Same Room
After Jesus’ death, the disciples were all in the same place.
Same moment.
Same loss.
Same uncertainty.
But they didn’t wait the same way.
Peter wanted to act—to do something, anything.
Andrew likely leaned toward people, trying to hold the group together.
John turned inward, processing, trying to understand.
Thomas needed clarity—something solid to hold onto.
They were all waiting.
But each one carried it differently.
Jesus Meets Us There
Here’s the good news:
Jesus meets us right where we are.
He didn’t require Peter to be less impulsive before restoring him.
He didn’t reject Thomas for his questions—He invited them.
He met each disciple in their way of waiting.
And He does the same for us.
No one is a perfect waiter.
But we are not alone in the waiting.
The Invitation to Be Still
In the middle of all this, there’s a quiet invitation:
“Be still and know that I am God.”
That sounds simple.
But it’s not easy.
Our instinct is to move.
To fix.
To figure it out.
To create some sense of control.
But Holy Week invites us into something different.
Not frantic movement.
Not anxious striving.
But stillness.
Not Passive, But Present
Waiting with God is not passive.
It’s not giving up.
It’s a different kind of posture.
We wait:
Not anxiously
Not restlessly
But attentively
Leaning into Jesus.
Trusting that He is at work—even when we can’t see it.
When Expectations Fall Apart
On Palm Sunday, the crowd thought they understood what was coming.
They expected victory.
Triumph.
A clear path forward.
But the way of Jesus moved through confusion…
through suffering…
through silence…
Before it led to resurrection.
And often, our lives follow a similar path.
Trusting God in the Silence
Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the pain.
It’s the silence.
The waiting where nothing seems to be happening.
But even then, God is still at work.
The invitation of Holy Week is not just to celebrate the ending.
It’s to trust God in the middle.
A Gentle Invitation
As you step into this season, consider this:
How are you waiting?
Are you rushing ahead?
Trying to control the outcome?
Or learning to be still?
Wherever you find yourself, Jesus meets you there.
And in the waiting, He invites you to trust.
To slow down.
To be present.
To know that He is God.
And that even in the silence—
He is still working.
