Now I understand there was quite a line last week at the new Krispy Kreme Donut store in Vernon Hills. (Go figure!) But for the most part, we Americans are not fond of waiting. Patience is not our strong suit. A former co-worker had a coffee cup with this prayer: “Lord, grant me patience-and I want it right now!” On a frustrating day a current co-worker expressed an opinion most of us have felt at some time, “Patience is over-rated.” American author and philosopher, Ambrose Bierce defined patience as “a minor form of despair, disguised as virtue.” We are not good at waiting; we’re not patient people. We get antsy in the grocery check out line. People launch into “road rage” when traffic backs up. We demand instant gratification, speedy delivery, faster computers and internet service, fast food with drive thru, quick fixes, instant access, short-term solutions. “Patient” is barely a word in our vocabulary. Most seem to think “patients” belong in a hospital. Get moving, or get out of the way!

Clearly, God has a lot to teach us about waiting patiently. It turns out that God is our model not only for love and faithfulness, but for hope and patience as well. Now you might ask, “Why does God need hope? After all, he is God. Why would God have to hope for or wait for anything?” Consider this: God has hope for US. In giving us our freedom, God has relinquished absolute control over our behavior. When you have control, you don’t need much hope, you don’t need patience, you don’t have to wait. But when things and people are not under control, hope becomes important, vital.

God is patient with his creation.
God is willing to wait.
God has hope for us.

The Bible contains numerous examples of God’s patience and hope: the father of the prodigal son, Jesus sending out the twelve to save the world.

Now, if God has hope for us, how much more ought we to hope in God! Despite all our prosperity and success and ingenuity, there are still things you and I need which only God can give: healing and wholeness, forgiveness and mercy, grace and peace, true joy, lasting justice, the whole truth. These are blessings worth waiting for, blessings that come not on our schedule, but on God’s. The world says, “Don’t bother waiting for anything. The way things are is the way they will always be.” And so, much of the world runs on pessimism, cynicism & fatalism. Hope, on the other hand, imagines, longs for, anticipates, and waits for the good things God is bringing.

Our hope is not only that God is bringing goodness to us, but that, ultimately, God is bringing us and all things to Himself. So it is that you and I need to learn hope and patience, just like we need to learn how to love.

How do we learn? In the Second Reading, James points us to some models of Patience: Farmers planting the seed and then waiting; waiting on God for rain and sun; waiting and hoping for harvest; we can’t make anything grow. Prophets proclaiming that Messiah is coming, then waiting, one century, two centuries, five centuries! We might also point to parents as models of patient hope. Kids take even longer than plants to grow. You can’t rush the process.

Time and again, the scriptures urge us to “Be Patient!” Of course, I realize that just telling someone who is stressed or in a hurry to “Be Patient!” is like telling someone who is really upset to “Calm Down!” Usually, such advice is not very well received (or effective). But, in our saner moments, we appreciate the value of patience.

To live in hope over time, we need to cultivate patience. We need to learn to wait on the Lord. Sometimes, the only way we learn how to wait is simply by waiting. But know this: patience is not merely limp, sweet, polite resignation. It is quiet confidence that God lives, God cares, God acts, God moves toward us.

John the Baptist knew about waiting. John had to struggle to adjust and re-focus his hope. God’s people had been waiting a long time for the promised Messiah hundreds of years! When Jesus finally showed up, John had some dark moments of doubt as to whether Jesus really was the ONE. Jesus was not at all what people were looking for, hoping for. They were waiting for a conquering kind. So, from a prison cell, John the Baptist sends an urgent, almost desperate message to Jesus, “ARE YOU THE ONE WHO IS TO COME, OR ARE WE TO WAIT FOR ANOTHER?” (there’s that word again, “Wait.”)

Jesus sends back this hopeful response, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” In other words, God’s promise is coming true!

We believe the Savior has indeed come, yet we still await the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise. We still live in hope. Patience is still required. The world around us seems a lot less sure than it did just a few short months ago. We take less for granted. In the absence of certainty and control, HOPE becomes even more necessary and life giving. Welsh poet and priest R.S. Thomas offers some powerful words in his poem:

Waiting for It

Now in the small hours of belief,
the one eloquence to master
is that of the bowed head,
the bent knee,
waiting, as at the end
of a hard winter
for one flower to open
on the mind’s tree of thorns.

Throughout this Advent season, St. Paul has been our eloquent professor of HOPE. From Romans 8 “In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, WE WAIT FOR IT WITH PATIENCE.”

In these days, people face all kinds of struggles. Not just the front-page stories and all the effects of September 11, but also very personal struggles and anxieties. People out of work, people in poor health, dealing with cancer and heart trouble, parents worried about kids, kids worried about parents, marriages under stress, people living in grief and sorrow.

The message of Advent speaks to us all: Put your hope in God, and you will not be disappointed. Trust in the Lord, wait patiently for him. “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Amen.