How many of you struggle with patience? Hmm…almost all hands. One night we went to a restaurant to eat and they told us there would be a 45-minute wait. Not willing to tolerate the waiting, we jumped in the car and headed for another restaurant. You guess it. Theirs was an hour and a half wait. Off we went to place number three, and the message was the same. Finally, some 45 minutes later, we circled back to the first restaurant, and were told there was now just a 15-minute wait. Our impatience took us back to where we started; finally we were seated.
In Hebrew the word patience means “to bear or suffer something unpleasant or painful without increasing the suffering.” Daily we have to bear or something unpleasant; most of us do so with an attitude that increases the suffering. Jesus bore suffering on the cross without “fighting it.” He shows us that patience is possible. In the Book of Proverbs we read, “…one who moves too hurriedly misses the way (Proverbs 19:2). If our impatience pushes us to move too fast rather than suffer, we run the risk of passing up our desired exit.
The people of Israel knew that there was only one solution to their predicament, and that was the Messiah. Their faith reminded them that there was only one “restaurant” in town, and there was no point hurrying around to finding an alternative. Their only option was to wait until God decided to step into the picture. Doing this without adding frustration to their problems was their only choice. And so they practiced patience.
Advent is a time of waiting. It is a journey through the desert trusting that God knows how to get us to our destination.
We continue to read from Isaiah as he proclaims that the Savior is coming (Isaiah 40:1-11).
“A voice cries out: in the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country a broad valley.”
God knew his people were lost and disoriented, trying to bear up under the sufferings of the desert. He intervened. He ordered that a new highway be built, that the mountains be levelled and the valleys filled in, so that his people could walk easily back home to their promised land.
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at and end, her guilt is expiated.”
Their time in the “waiting room” was finally over. The tender voice of their loving Shepherd was calling them into the “doctor’s office.”
“Like a shepherd he feed his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom…”
A strong and loving Shepherd was coming to pick up his worn and wounded sheep and carry them back home.
Jesus portrays himself as the Shepherd God sent to find the lost sheep and care for them (Matthew 18:12-14).
“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search for the stray?”
Jesus came to seek the lost rather than spend his time with the ninety-nine who didn’t think they were lost, even though they were. He is the Good Shepherd who goes out into the desert, finds a sheep tangled up in a bush, frees him and carries him back to safety.
In Advent, we remind ourselves that all of us are lost sheep in some way. There is a desert inside of us that thirsts for God’s love. Our impatience is manifest when we seek to find our way without God’s help, and in doing so we increase our own suffering and inflict on ourselves frustration.
Instead of rushing to another restaurant that doesn’t require waiting, we remain quietly in the waiting room, knowing that God’s “restaurant” is the only one that serves us what we need. At the right moment the Good Shepherd will open the door and call us into his heart.
