The Value of Patient Endurance

This is our pastor’s newsletter article for the December 2015-January 2016 edition of our congregational newsletter.

 

Recently, we’ve had some discussion about singing Christmas hymns during Advent. Advent is from the first Sunday after Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. Christmas is from December 25 to January 6. So, we’ll still let Advent be Advent, a season to prepare us for Christmas.

But wait! That doesn’t mean that we may not sing a Christmas hymn or two—if it matches what we’re doing on a given Sunday in Advent. Realizing that our culture (not the Church) celebrates Christmas before Christmas, I’ll work to include a few Christmas hymns during Advent—if it fits.

But this also shows how impatient we are. Why wait for something if we can have it today? But we know such a way of life can be disastrous. If someone only lives to satisfy his wants for the moment, he fails to do what is in his best, long-term interest. When that happens, one self-caused disaster after another takes place in his life because of that. Perhaps, you know someone like that.

But we can also live that way spiritually. That’s why the New Testament repeats—over and again—the need for patient endurance. The Apostle Paul told Pastor Titus to teach the value of patient endurance (Titus 2:2). As Christians, we are to “wait for [God’s] Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Waiting demands patience. Even more, we are to “make every effort to supplement [our] faith with… patient endurance…” (2 Peter 1:5-6). Wow, “every effort”; that sounds important!

Even the Apostle John’s vision of heaven shows the need for the saints on earth to be patient. “This calls for patient endurance of the saints [on earth], who keep God’s commands and their faith in Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). And Hebrews 12:1, speaking of the saints in eternity encouraging us to run the race of faith, says, “Let us run with patient endurance the race that lies before us.”

The Christian life is one of pressing on in the hope that is to come and in the faith that is to be fulfilled. We do not live in immediate spiritual gratification. After all, God calls us to run the race of faith and die before we experience the joys and glory of heaven. For our sinful flesh is corrupt to the core and cannot be reformed into perfection; it must die its death.

That’s the whole point of Jesus dying. Apart from Him, we would still die because of our fallen flesh—but then we would experience the result of that, eternal death, which Scripture calls “Hell.” But in Christ, we have died in His death, and so we live in His resurrection (see Romans 6:3-5). But that takes patient endurance, realizing that our faith’s fulfillment is in the future. That’s why the Apostle Peter tells us to “make every effort to supplement [our] faith with… patient endurance…” (2 Peter 1:5-6).

That means part of living the Christian faith is choosing to live our lives in a way that helps turn off our yearning for immediate gratification, of wanting something now that God promises to us in the future. This is Christian discipline and training. Now, it doesn’t save us—and yet God calls us to do this! Even more, such spiritual discipline isn’t something optional, any more than good works are optional in the life of the Christian.

The Church in her wisdom, over the centuries, developed a church-year calendar, even designing this calendar to help teach us patient endurance. Who wants to go through Lent? We want to celebrate Easter without Lent. Yet, to do so would not let us learn the value of patient endurance.

Lent is training us. It brings us to press on through the “dark” season of Lent to celebrate Easter when Easter comes, not before. (Lent also becomes a picture of our life now in this fallen world, with Easter pointing us to the body’s resurrection on the Last Day, made real by Christ’s resurrection.)

So, this brings us to Advent and Christmas. We are now in the Advent season. Of course, we want to celebrate Christmas now! I live in this culture. I want to do that, too! After all, we live in an impatient culture that seems unable to celebrate an event on the day of the event. In our culture, Christmas begins in early November and fizzles out even before the day of Christmas has ended.

But not so in Christ’s Church! In His Church, we wait in patient endurance, even though the impatient part of us wants Christmas now! But we hold off, savoring Christmas for the Christmas season. We’ll have 12 days of Christmas celebration and joy for that, which includes singing a bunch of Christmas hymns! But we’ll wait for that in the proper season, letting the Church in her wisdom teach us to “make every effort to supplement [our] faith with… patient endurance…” (1 Peter 1:5-6).

Christmas is about Christ’s incarnation. Christmas is about the infinite God containing, and joining, Himself to human flesh in the Person of Jesus for our salvation. As Jesus joined Himself to physical matter to earn our salvation, so also does He do that to deliver our salvation. In His Supper, Jesus joins Himself to physical bread and wine, giving to us what His incarnation (Jesus joining Himself to human flesh) made possible. That’s why the word “Christmas” comes from the words, “Christ’s Mass.” The “mass” is the Lord’s Supper in the Divine Service. So, celebrating Christmas is also about celebrating the “incarnation” of Christ in His Supper, Christ’s Mass.

And if celebrating Christmas is important to you, then come to church to celebrate “Christ’s Mass” on Christmas! But here’s the kicker—you have to wait for it! And guess what? We’ll also be singing Christmas hymns on Christmas day. Amen.