Expecting Jesus to show up while we are in the wall

(I preached this sermon on Sunday, Feb 7, 2021 in response to the Gospel reading — Mark 1:29–39. You can see the entire service as well as the sermon at our church website — www.ststephenlc.org.)

Marathon runners are intimately familiar with a concept called hitting the wall. It usually hits somewhere between mile 18 and mile 22. Everyone experiences the wall differently, but the core of it is that everything hurts — physically, mentally, emotionally. You feel lost and hopeless. You’ve gone so very far, and yet you aren’t done yet. Your body is drained. And your spirits are empty. Your mind doesn’t help either.

This is where we are as a society in the midst of this marathon of a pandemic. So many people are hitting a pandemic wall.

The phrase pandemic wall has become popular in the last couple of weeks — which makes sense really. It’s the idea that many people are hitting the wall with this pandemic. We have been going at this for months. We have been doing what we are supposed to. We haven’t seen family and friends. We are being responsible. And we are exhausted, often feel hopeless, and sense that there is no end in sight to this pandemic. We’ve been going at this for just about a year now.

When will it end, we wonder? We don’t know.

Throw on added stressors of serious partisan divide, economic worries, and the effects of isolation, in addition to just everyday life, and we are definitely in the wall.