James 5:7-10 (NRSV)
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the
Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with
it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient.
Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not
grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is
standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take
the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
A Call to Suffering and Patience:
THAT’S the Good News?!
The last time I saw my brother alive - which is to say the
last time I saw him at all as there was no viewing - was about 53 weeks ago. A
year and a week.
His health situation was dire and while we both hoped for a
miracle, I think when we shook hands as I left for the airport we both knew it
was “good-bye” and not “until we meet again.” At least, not in any ordinary
meaning of that phrase.
He lived another five weeks or so, going to hospice at the
very end when it really became impossible to care for him at home in any sort
of safe way because of his frequent falls.
His kidneys were failing and, while he insisted to the end
that he was in no pain, between having to have his bathroom needs attended to
and being assisted in everything he did when he wasn’t actually in his bed he
patiently suffered a great deal of indignity.
Now, “patiently suffered” is not a phrase that rolls easily
off my tongue or the tongue of my brother or, for that matter, the tongues of
any within the Bekkenhuis family. He had been hospitalized a number of times in
the last twenty years of his life and his reputation as a difficult patient –
to understate it – was the stuff of family lore.
He was a control-freak who attempted to run the entire
hospital from his hospital bed.
But in the last weeks of his life he graciously submitted to
the indignities of a failing body and always did everything he could to ease
the burdens of those who cared for him and raise the spirits of all who
interacted with him.
He was patient regarding the coming of the Lord, patient as
the farmer is patient for the rain to grow their crops. He did, in fact, model
the patience of the prophets in the face of suffering though I believe the
writer of James got it wrong – I suspect my brother indulged in grumbling,
which was more the example set by Jeremiah than by Isaiah. J
The Christian lives in the shadow of the Cross and in the
hope of the Resurrection and therefore is called to a life best exemplified by
realism and hope. And one who has received the gifts of realism and hope is
sufficiently freed from their own anxiety and insecurities that they are
capable of loving others as they love themselves.
Realism purged of hope leads to despair and cynicism. Hope
purged of realism leads to psychosis.
But the One whom Christians await during Advent, the Judge
who stands at the door, the one who will invade our world and our lives, comes
in the very epitome of a realistic hope – a baby born in poverty, destined to
cast out devils and heal the sick and feed the hungry and forgive the sinner
and yet who will die destitute and friendless on a cross as the means of
setting the world and its people free from both fantasy and hopelessness.
Even though the salvation of the world comes to us in an
unanticipated way, It really IS the Good News we need even if it is not the
good news we want.
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