“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming” (5:7).  Easy for him to say.  A sense of helplessness can make it hard to wait; so, too frustration, and fear: just sort of waiting for what cannot be avoided.  Eager expectation also can make it difficult to wait: we want to get to the good stuff as soon as possible!  Christmas Eve was always chaos over at my aunt’s house, everyone tearing into their gifts all at once.  Tom Petty sang about the waiting being the hardest part.  Now, if there was nothing to do while we were waiting, then, yes, the waiting would become almost intolerable, like sitting in the hospital waiting room hour upon hour.  We get why people in the hospital are called patients!

Beloved, we are all patients in the hospital of God’s Church; we are the walking wounded.  Christ is our doctor; the Spirit is our nurse.  Grace is our medicine, which comes to us many ways: Bible, bread and juice, worship, prayer, fasting, feasting, serving, loving.  We’ve been hearing these past Sundays about the holy value of endurance, courage, hope, and patience.  I suppose that’s the essence of the message I’ve been bringing to you every Sunday.  A lot can happen between Monday and Saturday!  Endurance, courage, patience, hope—maybe the best way to sum all that up is love.  What can help make the waiting tolerable?  What can help give us patience?  Love.  Do you recall what Paul says about love in his letter to those Corinthians?

James, also, wants to remind us about the faithfulness of patience.  Patience isn’t without a purpose.  Patience isn’t what we do when we can do nothing else, though it can often feel that way!  Patience teaches us about faith-fullness; faithfulness prompts us to work in our time of waiting.  Our lives are not a helpless, hopeless waiting for the end.  The point Jesus wants to get across to us, the point Jesus is fully qualified to speak about with all divine authority and truth, is that death is not the end of the journey.  The end of our journey in Christ is light eternal, joy everlasting, fullness of life without limit, in the presence of God.  We are even now in the presence of God, and as we wait to know the fullness of God’s presence with us—Immanuel—we work, love, and serve, knowing we are neither hopeless nor helpless.

“Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.  See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains” (5:7).  Good things come to those who wait, to those who are patiently patient.  The farmer—whose reliance is all on that rain, and the one who gives it—the farmer can’t make it rain; all he can do is wait, but his waiting is not idle; he plants, works, hopes, trusts, prays.  The rain will come, as God sees fit.  It’s been several months, now, and November turned out to be a wet month, but you may just remember that long, hot, dry summer we had; we started to wonder if it would ever rain.  And, if it ever did, would it make any difference?  What’s the point, if it makes no difference?  Then, do you remember?  Summer rain—what seemed like a whole week of it.  It was wonderful!  Then we began wondering when it would end.  We prayed for rain, then we wanted it to stop.  What a mess.

Most of us aren’t bound to the land the way farmers are.  Every walk of life, though, requires patience, because all things, especially the best things, are works of time: relationships, plans, goals, discipleship, salvation.  Over all our plans is God.  We don’t quite know what to do about that or how to feel about it.  Oh, we know we’re supposed to feel good and glad about it, but . . . We don’t really understand God’s plan or His ways, though we affirm, gladly, that it all ends in goodness for those who have faith, for those who live the patience that God builds into faith.  Still—things can seem pretty shaky out there and none too firm inside, either.  The good news for us is that you and I aren’t alone in feeling this way.  Christians have been feeling this way for a long time; we have been waiting a long time, lifetimes.  James knows, and this is why he writes to us, saying, “You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near” (5:8).

I imagine that there is such a thing as passive patience and active patience.  Passive patience isn’t chosen: it’s forced upon us and we lug it around like a hard, unhappy burden.  Yeah, we wait and all, but we aren’t really happy about it: like at the DMV.  “Number 72!”  And your ticket is 127.  “Your customer service call is number sixteen in the queue.”  Lord!  Active patience is a state of mind, a choice, an attitude, a disposition toward God and life.  God will make the way.  God will give the light.  God will bring the rain.  God will provide.  Probably not the way you or I had envisioned or had been praying, and God will provide.  God’s will shall be done, with and through us or despite us.  Like Mary, let’s strive to be those who invite God’s will to be done in and through them.  This is the way to stand firm in shaky times.

It really appears that Paul was expecting Jesus to return within Paul’s own lifetime.  That first generation was sure it would be soon.  How could they not be?  They had seen all that power, experienced it firsthand.  Never again did they want to be far from such glory.  James may be writing in that expectation, too, though Peter was careful to remind us that God’s timing and ours are not the same, and the point in any supposed, lamented delay was the salvation of those who are as yet straying and perishing (2 Pet 3:9).  I fear there may be even more straying today than all those centuries ago.  How many out there are making a real place for God in their daily living?  And the Lord’s coming is near; it gets nearer for each of us with each passing day.  Each of us will see him, by and by.

Active patience cherishes this truth as a constant source of joy, a constant cause to live now for the Lord.  He’s almost here!  We know patience takes work.  Work can wear us out.  Some of us may not have a grumpy bone in our bodies; others, like me, may just barely do an adequate job of covering over all those grumpy bones.  I’m afraid patience without charity won’t do.  So, James also writes, “Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged.  The Judge is standing at the door!” (5:9).  Imagine a scene—I hope you’ve never been through it!: two people who love each other are arguing, voices rising, tensions rising, hurt cracking open.  There’s a knock at the front door.  Lord!  What to do?  Pretend nobody is home?  Maybe they’ll just go away?  Open the door and act like nothing is happening?  Or open the door boldly and say, “Hi.  We’re fighting.  Come on in.”

It can be all too easy to find fault, nitpick, complain about one person to another person.  Far better, healthier, holier, to take your concerns directly to the one with whom you are not happy.  Eek!  Conflict!  We all love that saying, “Don’t judge.”  We nod and say yes, yes.  But when we fail to be patient with one another, fail to extend charity to one another, find fault and nitpick, and complain to one about another, aren’t we doing what we say we deplore?  We don’t have to like each other at all times, but let us love one another at all times.  For us, the opposite of judgment is charity; for God it is grace.

None of us are really talented at managing our hurt: physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual.  “Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord” (5:10).  Oh, what a long history of those who suffered for the sake of the Lord!  You can’t hardly miss it when you read the psalms.  They were going to kill Moses on at least a couple of occasions.  Elijah ran for his life.  They put Jeremiah at the bottom of a well, where he sank down into the mud.  John the Baptist was thrown away in prison for who knows how long.  They verbally abused just about every other prophet who ever wrote down a word of what God told him to say.  And if we, today, strive to hold fast and stand firm on traditional, historic, orthodox Christianity, we are each of us putting a very clear target right over our hearts.  “You, you evil, bigoted, toxic, fascist, hater!  Who are you to tell me who to love or how to live?”  Yes, the prophets heard the same thing.  So did Jesus.

“As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered.  You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about” (5:11).  The patience of Job.  If it’s been a while, you might be blessed to go back and read Job.  God really did a number on poor old Job.  True, he never cursed the Lord, but he did about everything up to that.  No, it’s not easy to bear up—there’s an understatement!  And, at the end, the Lord showed the fullness of His kindness to Job.  That’s our hope, too.  That’s the firm foundation: God’s underlying and ultimate kindness, through it all.  When the trial comes, and it will, what shall you and I do?

          Those psalms so full of complaint and anguish rejoice in the compassion and mercy of the Lord.  His mercy and compassion meet us at the end of the journey; they are with us all through the journey: constant companions, allies, friends.  We offer this compassion and mercy to others; we receive it.  The blessing we perceive as we persevere is experiencing the compassion and mercy of God.  As we live in faithful patience, we experience, in fuller measure, God’s compassion and mercy.  That is Jesus Christ.  That is the Holy Spirit.  You see, Christmas was a gift, but not the only gift.  Easter is also a gift, and Pentecost.  Compassion, mercy, grace—God makes the way for us to Him.  All we need do is have just enough patience to get there.

Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever!