PATIENT WAITING
‘And the Lord direct your hearts … into the patient waiting for Christ.’
There is no precipitance with God. St. Paul prays for the Thessalonians, ‘The Lord direct your heart into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ.’ And, perhaps, it will hereafter be found that the present season of the Church’s vigil and warfare is the grandest example of the patience of Christ.
I. Only as our hearts beat truly with His, only as our most real desires are in unison with His, can we live that spiritual life, which to live is Christ. Our Lord’s earthly life was lived, and His ministry fulfilled, in the light of His return to judgment. In His Sermon on the Mount, in His charge to His Apostles, in His private discourses, in His most impressive parables, in His farewell converse, in His good confession before the Sanhedrin,—he pointed to that day. After His Ascension, the promise of His return was the consolation which angels poured into the bereaved hearts of the Apostles. Thus it runs as a golden thread through all the Epistles. St. Paul never wearies of it; St. James urges patience in contemplating it; St. Peter reminds the elders of the Advent of the chief Shepherd; St. John comforts by the assurance—‘When He shall appear, we shall be like Him’; St. Jude re-echoes Enoch’s warning—‘The Lord cometh.’ And the last book of the inspired canon bears on its forefront, ‘Behold, He cometh with clouds,’ and closes with the threefold watchword, ‘I come quickly.’
II. As we drink in the spirit of these Scriptures, we are tempted to exclaim, ‘Surely there will not be one laggard heart: all will watch and wait and long for the return of their absent Lord!’ But has it been so? Looking broadly over the history of the Church of God, have the servants of the Householder been watching for His return? Has not the parable of the Ten Virgins been continually repeated—‘While the Bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept’? Passing from congregation to congregation, listening to the converse of professing Christians, how seldom you catch the echo of the Master’s watchword, ‘Surely, I come quickly’! And why? One reason has doubtless been the silent reflex influence of those students of natural phenomena who claim for law a power superior to that of the Lawgiver who enacts it. They argue, ‘All things continue as they were from the foundation of the world,’ and that what has been shall be. The Advent would so subvert a thousand favourite theories, that it is no wonder that learned men, who have not learned Christ, put the thought from them.
III. From one cause or another, the Church has relaxed her vigil.—There are, indeed, those who watch for the faintest sound of the footfall of their returning Lord. But they are few and far between. Perhaps of all hindrances to spiritual life none is more insidious than the answer to the ringing Advent call, ‘Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.’ But if slothfulness hinders His return, watchfulness helps the spiritual life (in the exercise of faith and patience) more than words can say. This lifts the heart to that which is imperishable and eternal. This cheers us on in our patient work for Him at home, for we hear his voice—‘Occupy till I come.’
—Bishop E. H. Bickersteth.