Given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on December 12, 2004. The Scripture is from James 5: 7 – 10…

Have you ever been across the desert? I can recall on one of our trips to California, when I was a kid, taking the route that went through Salt Lake City and then across the Salt Flats, and I seem to recall another time when we went across Death Valley itself. On both occasions, I plainly remember every gas station for sixty miles before you made the attempt to cross advertising canvas water-bags to carry emergency water in, and how much I thought we really needed to get one! Dad, however, was of a different opinion, and as we passed the sign saying, “Last Water and Gas Before Desert”, I settled in the back seat, resigned to my fate of dying of thirst when we broke down. (As you may have noticed, it never happened…)

What did happen, though, was that I came to realize that the desert was really a very beautiful place, in its own way. And while I’ve never been lucky enough to see it in person, over the years I have seen many pictures and movies showing just how beautiful the desert can be when the rains come and all of the plants burst into bloom! The key is to be patient… generally, at most it happens once a year, and some years the rains might not come and it not happen at all!

Patience! That’s a word that many, if not all, of us have trouble with, sometimes! In our Isaiah 35 we hear how. “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy…” at the time of Christ’s coming. But mankind is impatient… and with great efforts and at huge expense, small parts of the deserts have been made to bloom and support plants of many kinds… but only those plants that people want and think they need.

Isaiah goes on to prophesy that the coming of the Lord will cause, “…the eyes of the blind to be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” And so, in Matthew 11, even John the Baptist is impatient to know if Jesus is the Christ and sends his disciples to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

And Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”

Prophecy… and fulfillment… it was all right there! John should have known! He had to have known! But he still needed that confirmation from Jesus, Himself, and was impatient for it… he sent messengers to ask!

Patience! I once knew a person who co-owned three McDonalds restaurants… do you realize that the time allotted for them, at least back then, to give you your food after you order it at the drive-up was 90 seconds? 90 seconds! Their managers and inspectors would sit with stop watches and measure it… and if they are off, people were in trouble! And yet how many of us sit and fret about how long it’s taking and how much we need to get going? 90 seconds!

Patience! I have been going down to Branson, MO for over forty years, now. I can remember on my early trips how I hated to try to go down the ‘strip’… the main highway through town… because of traffic. It could take an hour or more just to go the twenty odd miles across town and out to Silver Dollar City! And as time went by, and the ‘strip’ grew, that only got worse! I learned to take a different route that took a very circuitous route around all of that and dropped me very close to the entrance to Silver Dollar City, and still prefer to take that whenever I can, just because I like it. But the trip down the ‘strip’ is no longer such a trial. I recall visiting Branson during the Christmas season in more recent times and never taking more than fifteen minutes to cross town! Now, granted, there may not be as many people there at this time of year, but there are still a lot…. no, the difference is that there are now more roads! But that was no easy feat!

As any who have ever been there know, Branson and all of that area sits on top of a number of mountains… and to get from one place to another, you had to go down and around one mountain and around and up another… and true, these are not big mountains, but it still might take you twenty miles of highway to cover five miles as the crow flies… until now! You see, the developers down there knew that people were frustrated with losing so much time in traffic… and frustrated people will become impatient… and eventually that impatience and frustration would combine to keep them from coming back again… and the developers very much wanted them to come back again!!! Soooo… they took down one mountain and used it to fill in between another two and, voilà, a new road! Now, people could choose between two routes, and traffic was cut in half. But that wasn’t enough for some! Sooo… since it worked so well the first time, the developers did it again… and again… and again!

Until finally, on a more recent trip, as I looked out of the window of our motel room towards the City of Branson… a motel that I had stayed at, from time to time, for some twenty-five years up to that point… I noted that the hills and hollers and trees and forest that I knew and loved were gone! Between me and Branson was almost nothing but bare rock where the dozers and dynamite had been at work… one entire mountain was just plain gone! It no longer existed! And the edges of ‘civilization’ were creeping ever closer and closer! And it occurred to me that in their impatience to solve the problem of ‘impatience’, the developers have removed what was, to me, at least, one of the main attractions the area had to offer… its unspoiled beauty!

‘God, give me patience… and give it to me now!’ Patience!

Today is the third Sunday of Advent… that time of year when we are all to be waiting patiently for the coming of our Lord. But, again, patience seems to be in short supply. The kids are all impatient for Christmas morning and all that that means to them… retailers are impatient for sales to increase… shoppers get impatient waiting in line at the check-outs while drivers sit and fume in holiday traffic… and all the world seems caught up to the hustle and bustle of the season!

But James tells us to, “Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!”

Patience! Jesus is coming… we don’t know the day… or the hour… but He is coming! And there should be no last minute details to take care of… there should be no, “I meant to do that” things dangling in your mind… no regrets for things undone or wished for… for since we don’t know when He might come… we should be prepared for Him to come at anytime! And if we are prepared for Him… then we can afford to be patient… and rejoice and celebrate as we await His return.

But… if we are not prepared… if we have left undone those things that we were to do for Him… if we have been too busy and impatient in managing our own lives and our own affairs to have the time and patience to follow His instructions and do all that He wanted us to do… then His coming may well mark the end of His patience with us… and I don’t want to think what that might mean!