CELC Third Sunday in Advent

The Third Sunday in Advent – December 12, 2004

James 5:7-10

Have you ever wondered why a person in the hospital is called a “patient?” I have a theory: I guess they are called patients because you have to wait for healing. There is no rushing the process of healing. Even with modern day techniques, wonder drugs and superior knowledge, the body still takes time to heal. You have to be patient. Thus, when in the hospital you are a patient; that is a patient person.

You may have another theory, but that is mine. And if that is the case, then believers in Jesus Christ could also be called “patients” because we are waiting for Jesus. We wait for his coming each day and at the end of time, just as he came to us as the baby born in Bethlehem. So, I might ask today, “How are you patients doing out there?”

The book of James is very up front about us Christians being patients. It says as our second lesson opens, “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.” Wow, there is another name for you as you wait on the coming Lord Jesus, “beloved.”

So, beloved patients, what do you need to be healed of these days? I am guessing that we often put up requests to God that we want answered right away. You know, those prayers that are something like this: “Lord, get me that new job so that I can add about 30% to my income and get rid of all these credit card bills.”

Now, St. Therese has been quoted to say that “there are more tears shed over answered prayers that unanswered ones.” God is always answering our prayers. Perhaps not exactly as we want, but God answers all the same. And when God answers our prayers exactly as we want, there is often a time lapse we don’t like. We are not patient; God seems to take way too long to answer. After all, isn’t the prayer of many, “God grant me patience and give it to me right away! Amen.”

The book of James uses a farming illustration to remind us that “right away” is only for Mac Donald’s or Burger King. The farmer plants the seed in the plowed soil and waits for the sun and rain to do their parts. Then, after a long time, the farmer harvests the bounty, now grown and delicious. Talk about patience. Talk about waiting on God. This is a very apt illustration of how easy it is for us to want to say to God, “right now!”

If you grow tomatoes in your garden you know the waiting. You know how delicious the first fruit is and you savor the bounty until it runs out. You might even can some, hoping to extend the delight of the delicious harvest. No matter what you do, though, you have to wait on God to provide the sun, the rain, and so much more. There is no rushing God.

But, we know better than God, don’t we? So we water and fertilize, knowing it will all happen faster. And, yes, it may be faster, but is it as good?

What happens is we fall into that trap that is as old as Adam and Eve or Cain and Able. It is the trap that we know better than God does. Patience? Well, we can make things happen our way and in our arrogance we think we know more than God.

It is little wonder that God has Jesus die on the cross that all our sin may be forgiven. It is little wonder that God dies on the cross that we can know mercy. It is little wonder that Jesus gave his life on the cross to love us unconditionally. We, the limited and little creatures think we are bigger than God, the creator of all, who stretched the heavens and created the earth. We creatures say, “We don’t need to wait.” It’s like ordering a quarter-pounder, knowing we’ll get it fast. Patiently wait for God? Not us!

Yet that is our calling. In the cross we learn what God is willing to do. God gives the very life of Jesus himself, for us. On the cross we sinners see forgiveness, mercy and unconditional love; from the cross God is calling us to a life of patience and waiting.

That is why prayer is so important. It is when we pray that we are close to God each day. As you enter into that sacred moment, that special time with God, speaking and listening, opening your hearts and invoking God’s presence, you receive the grace that strengthens your hearts. As you pray you receive grace that makes waiting, patient waiting, a possibility.

Yet, even when in prayer we know the call to patience, it is still a challenge. You still need the grace of God to strengthen you in your waiting. Otherwise you fall into the sin of grumbling against another. The book of James specifically warns us today that such bad mouthing of one another is unacceptable. Grumbling about others is a way to fill the time as we wait, as we are patient. However, it is not the way of love; it is not the way of mercy and forgiveness.

Ouch! Yes, ouch! This text from James this morning is meddling in our lives. “Yes,” we say, “we got the part about being patient and being called to wait. But don’t expect us to be so good that we give up gossiping, that we give up grumbling. It is just impossible.”

Yet what is impossible for us is possible with God. (Matthew 19:26) Today James reminds us that God can make possible what we cannot. The very Word of God, Jesus himself, can transform our words from grumbling and gossip to words of mercy and love; even words of forgiveness. That is how powerful the cross is in our lives.

Now, beloved patients, in the shadow of the cross, we wait, for the coming Lord Jesus. Patiently. Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley