We wait. We wait and we can feel the time passing. We wait and sometimes feel as if nothing is changing, nothing is really making a difference. We wait and we grow tired of waiting. Our strength and our fortitude seem to drain away. We can’t stand as we once did. Rather then hope, there is despair. Rather then patience, there is restlessness and impatience.

It is hard to wait in patience and trust. James knew this as he addressed a community fractured by eternal strife. The Lord had not come. The promises given by Christ seemed to be vanishing away. There was no new kingdom, no change, no anything. Things just seemed to be continuing on as they always had. This must have worn on them and so they were snipping at each other, judging and calling each other down, not so much because they believed that their neighbour was worthy of that judgment, but because they were frustrated and they retaliated in the easiest and most tangible way possible. By striking the neighbour, those in community with them. And it was tearing them apart.

It is not hard to imagine. It happens now as it did then. Marriages break-up because of impatience, the unwillingness to wait for change to take place. Institutions fracture when results are not achieved. Churches split when different sides grow tired of each other and are no longer willing to listen. Our society is built on instant gratification. If it can’t happen now, it is not worth dealing with. We are formed by our culture not to wait and to not be patient. We are looked at as squandering the time we have been given if we are too patient. We must be aggressive and take what is ours.

Yet James would counsel otherwise. He had no more proof of the coming of the Lord then before, but still he counselled to wait, to see God’s action as occurring in due season, like the rains that come to water and nourish the crops waiting expectantly in the earth. The farmer waits in trust and hope, with an almost inhuman patience for the coming of that which he trusts will come. And so James perceived the coming of the Kingdom of God. It would come. Christ would return. But all in due season. Meanwhile, James calls his audience, along with us, to wait in hope and trust and recognize that which God has done, acts that James does not mention but we hear listed in the psalm and in the Gospel. This God for whom we wait is a God who cares for the poor and oppressed when no one else will. This is a God who heals diseases and ailments that were deemed as unclean or as deserving for a perceived sin committed at some point in the history of a given family. This is a God who transcends the boundaries of who is worthy of care and who is not. This is a God who serves and asks us to experience God’s presence in those actions, to perceive God not primarily in words or visions, but in the actions of love which God has performed and to which God calls us to perform. Although the farmer waits upon the rains in due season, the sun to shine and the earth to bring forth its fruits, this does not mean that the framer sit idly, simply waiting. The farmer tends and cares for the soil. The farmer protects the fruit of his labour from weeds and pests. He waits in expectation, hope, trust and in so doing, is still able to act. James upholds this image to his audience and encourages them to do the same. Have patience and stay true to each other and to your purpose here in this world.

Patience is one of the most difficult virtues to hold fast to. It is constantly challenged by a society intent on immediate results, results oriented on selfish desire or material conquest. And yet the more we are driven to seek instant gratification, the more we lose even what we have. We are driven further and further away from each other. This is what James warns against and this is what is happening to us now.

And yet, God hasn’t given up on us, even if we are a humanity that never seems to be able to grasp what it means to wait in patience and trust. God still works for us and will bring about all that God had promised, a world of love, justice and mercy, a world where God is present and sovereign and the powers of darkness that tear us apart are no more. In a season such as Advent, we are reminded what it means to wait. We are reminded that God is still at work. We experience the expectation of the Christ child being born once again in our midst and come to realize the importance of God with us in very pronounced ways. It is a time of quiet renewal, of taking stalk of who we are and whose we are so that we can go forward to serve, in readiness, in a renewed relationship with God, in hope, expectation, in trust, in patience. This is the blessing of the Advent season. A reminder of what it means to be patient.

We wait. I look to the imminent return of my family. It seemed intolerable at times to be away from them for so long. On those occasions I felt like it would be better to never even leave the couch, or to simply cease to exist until they returned. I think back and wonder how I survived, especially in those moments. But as in all things, God was there with me, with my family. Our constant contact with one another nourished our relationship with each other and our devotion to one another kept us faithful and loving, even when we were a half a world away. We cultivated our love, but it was God who sustained us and God that nurtures and brings to fruition all the effort that we placed in the relationship. It was hard to stay patient, but God was there, upholding us. This is but a small example. We all wait, for many and various things and for the common hope of a world and an existence renewed by God.

We wait. We wait this Advent season in readiness, repentance, patience. We wait for the coming Christ child. We wait for the miracle that will change this world into the promised Kingdom of God. We wait.

Amen