It’s beautiful, but we’re ready for it to go now. I mean the snow, of course. After six days our street at home still looks like a woodsy winter postcard, fir trees and rooftops loaded with the white stuff. And our church parking lot still has two or three inches of packed ice and snow covering 90 percent of it. The main roads around town show a lot of bare pavement, but driving is still an adventure with intersections and side streets a challenge.
So everyone is growing a little impatient. Drivers move a little faster than they should and conversation about the weather just sounds dismal and frustrated as we hear forecasts of some possible freezing rain tomorrow afternoon.
But a week of waiting for the ice and snow to melt is pretty tiny compared to the centuries Christians have waited for the Lord’s return. It’s not surprising some of us might grow a little impatient, a little dismal and frustrated. I recently read how the Seventh Day Adventists were a little sad and frustrated to celebrate their 150th anniversary as a denomination this past year. The name “Adventist” indicates their founding vision as a group expecting the Lord’s second Advent to happen very soon, in their lifetimes. Yet here they are, a century and a half later, still waiting. So are we all.
Yet across those centuries, the apostle James still speaks to us in this Sunday’s text, James 5:7-11, which begins “Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.” Our other texts strike similar notes as in Matthew 11:2-11 we find John the Baptist growing weary and unsure of Jesus as he languishes in prison. In Isaiah 35:1-10 the prophet calls for the strengthening of weak hands, the firming of feeble knees, the reassurance of fearful hearts, with the promise in verse 4, “He will come and save you!”
James, in verse 10, refers us to the example of patience in the prophets who suffered while announcing and waiting for the coming of the Messiah, only to have the first Advent of Christ delay until hundreds of years later. Yet their patience was blessed and ultimately rewarded. Their prophecy and patience was vindicated when Jesus was born. All this to say nothing of Job (verse 11) who knew very little of the “redeemer” he awaited.
Those ancient examples of patience are tough acts to follow, especially for folks like us who get worn down by the inconvenience of a little out-of-the-ordinary snow. Yet our hope is as sure as it was when Isaiah announced that God would come and that “everlasting joy shall be upon their heads,” for those who wait for Him. Let us seek that sort of patience as we continue the holy Christian practice of waiting for our Lord. As sure as all this slippery stuff is going to melt one of these days, He will come.