May 2, 2021 – Confirmation Text: Daniel 12:12
Dear Friends in Christ,
This year’s Confirmation class has many unique characteristics. They are all young men. 3 of the 4 were baptized within two months of each other. I was privileged to perform all four baptisms and they have all been lifelong members of Good Shepherd. The other unique characteristic that is important for today is that they all have an older brother, brothers, or sister. 3 of the 4 are the youngest in their family. Which means they have all had to wait. They watched siblings start school. They saw a brother or sister get into organized sports before them. Scouting membership was something they waited on. They set through the questioning and confirmation of their beloved brother and sister. They’ve waited and here they are.
The prophet Daniel says in our text that waiting is a blessing. How do you see it? Today is a future oriented day but not just for these young men. It is also important for all in the Christian Church. What does the future look like and what place do I play in it? Hang on to your patience as we delve into . . .
“WAITING. . . WAITING . . .”
In the United States, the holy, Christian Church is facing a fork in the road. Since the days of Emperor Theodosius I in AD 379 Christianity has enjoyed privileged status in Western European culture. The Church has had freedom to wield political, legal, intellectual, and cultural power, according to its mission and purpose. But it looks more and more like the Church’s privileged status is coming to an end. The Church has been fragmented and secularism has pushed the Church to the fringe of society. In all the areas I mentioned earlier the voice of orthodox Christianity is diminishing.
The two most popular paths to follow in the past have been zealotry and despair. Zealotry seeks to regain power at all costs. You then turn your renewed status against your oppressor. Despair is surrendering. Withdraw from the conflicts that seem insurmountable, repudiate the world and start a nirvana somewhere else. Both paths have been followed in the past and failed.
As with the pandemic there is nothing new. History repeats and repeats. The first three centuries of the Christian Church faced wave after wave of hostility. Political exclusion. Legal persecution. Cultural contempt. Roman rulers identified the Christian Church as a dangerous “contagion” that needed to be quarantined for the good of society.
The ancient Church rejected both paths in favor of a third – the path of patience, or, better, long-suffering. Does that make you squirm in the pew a bit? In American culture patience is met with skepticism. We live in an impatient society. I see more people who think stop signs are just a suggestion. “Seize the day!” “Just do it.” The politics of the day feed this activism with crisis after crisis, which leads to immediate action. To be patient is equated with doing nothing.
The early Church Father Cyprian who advocated waiting said this, “We do not speak great things, we live them.” Patience is the Christian form of life and it is active. We don’t eliminate or evade suffering, we bear it, we endure, and we outlast it. God is the author of supreme patience. We see it with Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, Joseph who makes peace with his brothers, Moses, David, and all the righteous. Yet it is only in Christ that a full and perfect patience is finally consummated.
The true Son, Jesus, gives form to the perfect patience of the Father. Although righteous, He bears the sins of the whole world; though immortal, He suffers death; though guiltless, He is reckoned with sinners. Patience does not look to rule the world or reject the world. It seeks fulfillment in the redemption of the world, in the repentance of sinners, in the resurrection and manifestation of Christ in the glory of His Father. The resurrection and the life of the world to come gives Christians the freedom to be patient, turn the cheek, to love the enemy and bear one another’s burdens in Christ. Patience is freedom because it has no boundaries. Its beginning and end reside in God, and so patience and waiting is the path for Christians.
As people of faith we await the Lord’s deliverance. King David wrote in Psalm 130, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.” (v. 4) It was a wonderful blessing to talk with these young men about their future as husbands and fathers. They wait to be spiritual heads of their families. They wait for the Christian spouse God has for them. They wait to prayerfully be blessed with children. Christian patience. Make a God-ordained difference in your little part of the world. Men who will lead their families are so needed.
For all of us we wait for our eternal home. May our patience be a sign of God’s enduring mercy and a testimony to the hope of the resurrection. On that day, the beatitude will be fulfilled: “Blessed is the man who waits.”
Amen.