[AI translation] The entire content of this next passage can be contained in this two-word warning: be patient! Everything else that is in it is an elaboration, an explanation, a justification of this warning. Five times in a row, the words forbearance, forbearance, forbearance are used. James tells us that impatience is a sign of unbelief, because it testifies that he does not count on the imminence of the glorious return of the Lord Jesus. Yet the Judge who is approaching to judge the world is already at the door, and faith in him will save us from much impatient hastiness and doubting. Our faith that the Lord's return is near is a great strength and comfort, especially in our sufferings and in our dealings with unpleasant people. This faith teaches us and enables us to do one of the most difficult things: patience. That is what this Word is talking about.Patience is needed by every human being who lives. To be patient is like standing in front of a door that must be opened one day, but it is not yet open, it is still closed. And we have to wait, to wait even when we feel that we can't wait any longer. Many times in life we are faced with such closed doors. It may be a dark spot on our conscience that we know we can't get rid of, but which weighs us down, blocks our way, casts a shadow over all our joy. It may be a person with whom you are bound in your work or marriage or home; from whom you have to put up with a lot, with whom you can't seem to get any kind of tolerable communion, no matter how many times you have tried. It may be some kind of inhibition, natural gift or trait that you cannot change, no matter how hard you try. Or it could be a pain, a deep wound in the soul that he can't forget. Or unfortunate circumstances, seemingly insoluble problems from which there is no way out. Or maybe it is a disease, a suffering, in which one recognizes the gloomy harbinger of approaching death. There are many kinds of closed doors. Our lives are full of situations where common sense dictates patience. There is even a proverb: Patience is a rose - but in vain, because there is none, or if there was, it runs out and we come out of our peace!
Even the most impatient man sighs and complains: I have patience, I have waited so long and still the door does not open! Why should I wait, it won't get better, it won't work anyway! Yes: that's our patience, which betrays and exposes the fact that it is not patience! It is then that it becomes clear that our patience is only a thin layer of ice over the deep waters of impatience, which only covers the many anxieties and doubts that are surging in the depths of our souls. But it does not last: it breaks under the slightest strain, and begins to sink irresponsibly in the waves of one's own despair. We must conclude that true peace is not in us, that true peace is unknown to us. We are incapable of it! Our patience is wired, bound, to the idea that one day my destiny will turn the way I imagined it would; one day what I longed for will come true; one day the door I have been knocking at for so long will open. Our patience is nothing more than a soothing, a calming of our impatience, a calming of our impatience, a false hope, most often, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope, a false hope.
But the peace of mind of which James speaks is quite different. This forbearance is not set on an imaginary improvement of my difficult situation, but on the living God! And not on a hoped-for action of God that will finally open that door, but on God himself, the God who acts, the God who acts sovereignly, that is, even against my imagination! So, for example: for a patient, the source of patience is not that the expected healing will come through the grace of God, but that he knows that he is in the hands of God, who acts in grace in his illness, and that he waits patiently to see what will come out of God's acting in this way with him! For this patient there is never a final darkness or a final obstacle, and therefore he can never fall into total hopelessness and hopelessness. This tolerance never fails because, even in the most desperate and miserable situation, it knows that there is help for it, help which does not solve a particular problem of its life, perhaps, but which is more than a problem of a particular problem, but which is more than a problem of a particular problem: help which embraces the whole of its life, which embraces its whole being and which saves it: salvation! And he knows that that door is always open for him and he knows that perhaps it is precisely because many other doors are closed that he is forced to enter through that open door at last, or to enter again and again! And this peace of mind also knows that behind all the darkness of life, behind all the senselessness of all the darkness of life, there is a divine intelligence that transcends all understanding, there is the gracious God himself! He knows that there is a connection between sin and forgiveness, between death and resurrection, and therefore he knows of a God for whom all things are possible! This patience also waits, but it waits for God. This patience also stands before the many closed doors of life - which refuse to open at our wish and our pushing - but it also knows why those doors are still not open: because God has not opened them! But He can open it if He will. So, in the end, he is not waiting for the door to open, but he is waiting for God!
We have said that a believer can be at peace because he is waiting for God to act. And every believer knows that God is thoroughly engaged in action in this world. Look at God's mightiest action, Jesus Christ, who Himself once stood at the most hopelessly closed gate, the dark door of death. He disappeared in its terrifying shadows, and suddenly the gate was opened, the door of death was burst open, and now the glory and victory of His life shines through it towards us. This Jesus did not go to heaven only to have the opened door shut behind Him, but He is coming back in the same way to open all the doors of sin, suffering and death to the world once and for all! The believer can be at peace in all situations because he waits for Him, Christ, Who has come and Who will come again, and Who is present with us now through His Spirit, every day until the end of the world. That is why we can be patient, that is why we can wait with patience for the certain hope that Jesus Christ will triumph! The supreme support of faith is that the coming of the Lord is near! This faith is the basis of Christian patience!
James illustrates this with an example: "Behold, the ploughman waits for the precious fruit of the ground, he waits with patience until he receives rain in the morning and in the evening." (James 5:7b) You cannot hurry the sprouting and growth of the seed that has been sown! There is really only one thing to do here, once the seed has been sown: entrust it to the One who gives the growth and the fruit. The sower waits, knows he must wait, and knows what he is waiting for. There are only the grey clods before him in which he has sown the seed, and he sees no sign yet of the coming harvest. And yet he knows: it must be so now that he sees nothing. Perhaps, in the meantime, the snow is still covering the seed and the ploughman can do nothing to ensure that there will be fruit. But in due course the spring rains will come, the seed will sprout and the harvest will come. And the sower knows this, and because he knows this, he can wait. That is his patience!
And such is the patience of which James speaks. The great divine sowing has taken place with the coming to earth and death of Jesus Christ! God has sown the seed of a new world to come, a new heaven and a new earth in this world of ours. He has planted the seed of eternal life in the earth: with his resurrection the heavenly seed has sprouted, and since then it has ripened for harvest. The full ripening and the final unfolding of the fruits of Jesus' death and resurrection and triumph are still to come, and now all the events in the world - like the morning and evening rains - are ripening the world for harvest. To be at peace is to acknowledge that something greater is at stake here than the hoped-for opening of the tiny doors of my desires and imaginings: here is the rebirth of all life, the ripening of the fruits of redemption for the whole world! This is not about my petty little affairs, but about Jesus, what He did on the cross and in the tomb, and what He does, what He brings. To be ready for that: that's peace! That's what it means to admit: God cannot use me as I am in His great work of redeeming the whole world. That's why He closes certain doors to me. That is why He takes things away from me that keep me tied down. That is why the sky overcasts us at times: the morning and evening rains are all just ripening the crops for harvest.
This is what James means when he exhorts us thus: "Be ye also of good courage, and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand." (James 5:8) And precisely because this is the case, he adds, "Do not murmur against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned: behold, the Judge stands at the door." (Jas 5:9) How can one who has such great hope be brought out of peace by the scolding, the stabbing, the teasing, the unrighteousness of men? If I truly believe in God, He is the only truly active factor in my life, not people! All people can only be His instrument: either a kind, warm hand by which He caresses my life, - or a scrubbing brush, chisel, drill, hammer with which He cleans, trims, shapes, moulds. Whatever it is, it is always a tool in His hands. They cannot dazzle when they praise, they cannot discourage, they cannot hurt when they attack. I am not offended, I am not angry with the scrubbing brush, for it does not scrub by itself. It is held and scrubbed by a mighty hand: the Lord of all, a pierced, bloody hand! Much of our wasted strength is wasted in fighting with the brush that scrubs bloody, or the hoe that cuts my life. The hoe may be malicious in itself, but it cuts exactly where it should!
Only when I am truly free from men, only when I have no inhibitions against them, only when I am dependent on Christ and can see them in that dependence on Christ. And that is why I must be free from men, unprejudiced, without sighing, so that I can be free to serve them, towards them! For their benefit! For their benefit! For everyone. Indiscriminately! Without race, color, creed, class! Behind every person I meet, Christ stands and asks - as he once asked Peter: "Do you love me?" Therefore, "Do not sigh against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned." (James 5:9a)
Behold, the One who asks from behind another man, "Do you love me?" is soon coming like a Judge, already at the door! Be ye therefore, brethren, patient in all situations, towards all kinds of men, in view of the coming of the Lord! Our anxious, restless, impatient hearts will be calmed and will be able to wait in peace if they express their sincere, true supplication in this song:
I wait, Lord, with a heart of hope,
As watchful watches for the dawn in the night;
Bring me thy fair day in the morning,
That I may serve thee with a more earnest mind.
(Canto 226, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 13 September 1953.
Lesson
2Kor 12,1-10