Preparatory Suffering
James 5:7-10
The First Wednesday of Advent – 12/4/2024
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this evening is our first lesson from the Epistle of St. James in the fifth chapter with special emphasis on verse ten which reads as follows:
“As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our readings this week give us a brief but profound rationale for learning from the faithful Christians who have come before us. Today, specifically, we are given in our reading from Matthew St. John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ and the last of the Old Testament prophets. But by no means should we limit our learning to his example alone. The Scriptures are full of great heroes of the faith, men and women alike, who give us firm and concrete examples of how to live as faithful followers of the Lord Jesus. Besides this, we also have centuries of Christian history from which to draw. Today the Church commemorates St. John of Damascus, an eighth century pastor famous in his day for his writings and preaching to defend the Christian Church from Islam. This Friday commemorates St. Nicholas of Myra, who was a bishop and pastor from the fourth century and who was present at the Council of Nicaea from which we get the first version of the Nicene Creed we say each time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
There is certainly a lot to learn from these great figures, men and women alike, who served their Lord selflessly and stood firmly against the distressing things of this world of sin. These were not superhuman people, given some great and unnatural nerve. No, what makes these famous Christians so famous is their ordinariness. That is to say, though they may have done great and memorable things or come to profound insights about God, they suffered here just like the rest of us. They too struggled with sin - both theirs and others. They too were met with hostility and frustration. They too were mistreated for the sake of Christ. But, by God’s grace, they endured and resisted and held fast to Christ and so received the crown of glory.
More to the point, there are a lot of reasons in this life to become frustrated, upset, even angry. There are certainly great evils on the news and social media that can easily make our blood boil. There are strange people and strange ideas that seem to pop up ever new and ever stranger. It is easy to be impatient with those who are outside of the Church. It is easy to treat the evils of this world with evil in return. So, by way of applying what St. James teaches us here, let us consider St. John the Baptist.
John was not given to give up his God for the sake of comfort or leisure. Instead, he literally abandoned everything for the sake of God and for preparing the way of the Lord Jesus’s coming. He lived in the wild country, undeveloped land and ate only whatever wild food God gave him. In the most basic and literal of senses, John was totally dependent of God and trusted in God entirely for every bit of his well-being. He did not care about what was whispered about him back in Bethany, Bethlehem, or Jerusalem. He suffered for his faith, he was at the mercy of wind and rain, heat and sun. His clothes were uncomfortable and certainly unfashionable. But John did not mind. He did not set his sights on living a life to impress the fashionable elite in Jerusalem, he instead wanted to be faithful to God.
The example here is easy enough: too often we set our sights on impressing the fashionable, the well-to-do, the powerful, the charismatic, and the important among us. Career, purchase, moving, school – too often these become proxies for trying to impress the people we think need to be impressed. The problem with this is hopefully obvious to you. As all good mothers teach us when we head off to school for the first time, it is not a good way to live your life, that is, it is very harmful to us to live as if our greatest good and most important thing was to impress these people we think are important and meaningful. And I know that we all know this, but it is also true that every single one of us has made decisions and carried out actions to do exactly that.
Now there is nothing wrong with doing impressive things, per se. But we must be wary of living a life that seeks to impress sinful human beings rather than being faithful to our God. John shows us the folly, the foolishness, of this. And what is interesting here is that his being faithful actually made him more of a thing to consider for the people of his day than he would have been otherwise.
There is an old cliché that we should forge our own path and do our own thing and by so doing we will be well regarded. There is a kernel of truth to this: no one likes the kind of person who has so few convictions that he or she has no personality or resolve of his or her own. But it is also true that a person who only lives for himself or herself and has no higher purpose or goal is one who is insufferable and unpleasant to be around.
Against all of this, John shows us another and better way: by dying to one’s own self interest and living in Christ. This way gives freedom from the rat race of selfish ambition, personal entitlement, trying to impress and/or keep up with the neighbors, and all things like this. Christ does not free us only from things that feel spiritual, but also from those things that bind and control us even in our social interactions. A life in Christ is one free from having to worry about what the general world thinks. Instead, we spend our time working on being faithful to Him in the many and various works He has called us to.
The reason here is very simple: these things that we seek to do to impress and dazzle, these are passing away. Either by death or by the return of the Lord, their importance will end. But Christ, He is eternal. His Kingdom is eternal. It does not end; indeed, it cannot end.
So, here and now, living in Christ will lead you to suffer at the hands of this sinful world. But fear not, this suffering is preparatory. All the saints who came before you, those who we know and remember, and those who we do not, these all suffered for Christ as well. But your suffering is not in vain, it is preparatory. It prepares us for Christ’s perfect and everlasting Kingdom. It shears off our selfishness, pride, and all other vices and evils. It keeps our attention on Christ and Him alone who saves us. After all, it is only Christ Who has shed His blood and died for us so that we might live forever forgiven saints.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] James 5:10 English Standard Version
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