Third Sunday of Advent

James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11
We are thinking in this Advent season how we might best prepare in heart, mind and soul for the celebration of Christmas. We are doing that so that when Christmas comes along we might take to heart the message; and having taken it to heart, make a change in our lives that will help us give more of ourselves to God and give more of ourselves in our discipleship of Christ.
We are looking forward during Advent as we look inward as well. We are looking forward with hope and anticipation and expectation. We really ought to have a mounting excitement at the prospect of finding new meaning in Christmas, of making new discoveries and making changes.
Whenever we look forward with excitement and joy we can begin to want whatever is to come, right now, right at this moment. We can become impatient. And it's such impatience that St. James counsels us against today; 'Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.' And of course, patience has always been seen as one of the virtues and a fruit of the Spirit of God. So in having patience we are tapping right in to God, getting nearer to God, we are becoming godly.
At the time St. James was writing, Jesus' disciples believed that His second coming wouldn't be long. What He'd said here and there led them to believe that. And this passage from St. James' letter tells us such; 'Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.' As they thought Jesus' second coming was near, maybe we could say it was easier for them to have patience than it is for us, who still wait. But I think that patience has little to do with waiting for something. That's just one aspect of this virtue and fruit of the Spirit. Patience is a way of life, a way of being, a way of living in this world no matter what is in front of or around us.
We can see that patience is much bigger than we might first understand. It's much more than just holding your tongue or biding your time. We begin to see this when we go on to read what St. James says next; 'Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.' Grumbling and judgement. How much are they the result, the fruit, the children of impatience? Whenever we come upon a situation that demands patience, we very soon fall into a state of grumbling and judgement. Maybe we are sat in the doctor's waiting room and our appointment time passes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. We begin to get irritated and fall into criticising the appointments system, the reception staff, the doctor, the NHS, the government and so it goes on. The longer we wait, the more harsh the criticism, the deeper the complaining, the harsher the judgement.
St. James, in this letter, gives away another aspect of patience. He says; 'As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.' He's indicating here that patience has something to do with suffering. And indeed if you look at the origin of the word 'patience' it has the same root as the word 'suffer'. We talk about the 'passion' of Christ when we are meaning his suffering. And that's because the meaning of the two words passion and suffering overlap. The word 'patience' comes from the word 'passio' to suffer.
And then there are two aspects to this suffering. In one we mean that demands are made on us so that we can feel or be hurt in body, mind or spirit. And when we are grumbling and complaining and judging, not only do we feel hurt, taken advantage of, abused, we are also hurting ourselves, causing ourselves to suffer through those feelings. That's why Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount; 'judge not, so that you aren't judged, because you will be judged in the same way as you judge others'. What we give out rebounds on us, we reap what we sow. And doesn't this show how intimately connected we all are in such subtle ways. In causing others to suffer, we actually suffer ourselves.
But there's another meaning to the word suffer, a meaning in the use of the word that isn't seen much at all these days. To suffer also means to 'allow'. The words of Jesus; 'Suffer the little children to come to me'; is a well known phrase in older translations of the Bible, meaning let or allow the children. When we suffer something to happen we allow it to happen. And again, here is a link to patience. When we have patience, we have to allow events to unfold, allow them to happen in a detached way. And the prophets did this St. James tells us when they spoke of the Lord. We can see that throughout the Old Testament and indeed in the New Testament as well. All those prophets in the Bible very often spoke of God and the Word of God into a world that ignored it. The western world today is very much like that ancient world in that respect. So the prophets had to have patience, they had to just speak and act and let things unfold as they would unfold. And contemporary prophets learn very quickly that you have to have patience in all senses of the word when it comes to the things of God. God's Kingdom is built in God's time and you can't hurry God and you have to have far more patience when it comes to waiting on God than when you are sat in the doctor's waiting room.
But this is all to and for our own good, for our own spiritual awareness and relationship with God. And for our relationships with one another and ourself as well. In Advent we are reminded that we are waiting with patience and suffering for God to act. We wait with hope and we wait in faith, and the actual waiting is in that sense part of our salvation, part of our healing, part of our coming to know God in His fullness. For now, it's the journey that matters rather more than the destination. So let us wait and watch as God calls us to do, with patience until we see His time come in our lives.