You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near.
James 5:8
The Judge at the Door
James has just finished warning rich landowners who cheated their workers, and then he turns to the people who were cheated. Be patient until the Lord's coming. He points them at a farmer waiting for the autumn and spring rains, and then he says it again to us today. You too, be patient and stand firm.
How do I know this is written even to us today? It was common belief for the first century followers of Jesus that he would return in their lifetime. That obviously didn't happen, and that means we, too, need to "be patient and stand firm."
Then James pens verse 9, and it doesn't go where you'd expect. "Don't grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!"
Look at where James thinks the danger is. The people to whom this letter is addressed are being defrauded by employers. If anyone had a target for their frustration, they did. And James warns them about grumbling at each other.
He knows what waiting does to us. Waiting rarely makes us angry at the situation, because the situation doesn't have a face. It makes us short with the people nearest to us, who do have faces. The wait wears us down, and the person who gets the worn edge is a spouse, a friend, someone at church, or whoever is in the room.
So James puts the same fact on both sides of the instruction. "The Lord's coming is near," and "the Judge is standing at the door." That nearness is a comfort in verse 8 and a warning in verse 9. Hold on, and be careful how you treat each other while you hold on.
I wrote about the waiting itself in Ready for an Unknown Hour, where Jesus tells us to be ready without telling us when. This is the part of being ready that happens in community.
Patient With the People in the Room
This looks like not taking your bad mood out on people who did nothing wrong. This looks like engaging with your spouse when you'd rather sit in silence. It could look like noticing that the friend you're short with isn't the one who caused your feeling. It even looks like letting a small annoyance stay small even when it's stuck around for a long time.
James isn't asking you to feel patient. He's asking you to be careful with the people around you while you don't feel patient. Those are two different jobs, and the second one is always available to you.
James gives us the reason to keep standing. "The Lord's coming is near." Whatever you're waiting on doesn't get the last word, and it doesn't get to decide what kind of person you are while it lasts.
Prayer
Jesus, waiting is hard, and we aren't always honest about what it costs the people around us. Forgive us for the times we've made someone close to us pay for a situation they never caused. Help us to stand firm, and help us to be gentle while we stand. Thank you that you're near, and that the waiting has an end. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.