Ephesians 4:1-6 (NLT)
Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all.
Be Patient.
Sometimes those plot twists not recorded in the Gospels can be more powerful than that which is. In those times, there is room for imagination. John (the Gospel writer, not the Pastor) even alluded to this at the end of his Gospel when he scribbled the statement, “Jesus did so much stuff that if you wrote it all out, there wouldn’t be enough books in the world to hold all the stories.” With that in mind, allow me some creative leash to walk. And I’ll try not choke myself.
There lived in those days a man. A man who throughout his teenage years grew disillusioned with the world around him. He became a rebel…with plenty of causes. He despised the Roman occupiers and made trouble for them at every turn. He hated the suffocating religion and God of his people. A God who cared nothing for the common man because it placed violent thieves over the people. Jealous and angry, he lashed out, becoming a violent criminal himself. Only of the illegal variety. He stole food, robbed people, killed those who turned on him, cavorted with the town’s women, smuggled contraband. Anything and everything you can possibly imagine in those days. On numerous occasions, on his gallivanting through the country, he’d heard of this man named Jesus, who was supposed to be a rabbi above all rabbis. But he wrote him off, simply because he was a rabbi and he wanted nothing to do with them. One occasion, he even bumped into this Jesus by accident as he ducked into a crowd fleeing the authorities. As he turned to see who he slammed in to, he was staring directly into the eyes of Jesus. He just knew it was Jesus, for his eyes seemed to go right through his own, straight to his troubled soul. Jesus smiled, held out his hand, said follow me.
For an emotional moment, the man’s heart weakened…but then the hardness returned. “I want no part of you,” he spewed, shoving his way around Jesus and spitting over his shoulder in an utter display of contempt.
Peter, James, and John rush to Jesus' side. “Shall we restrain him, Master? Call the authorities and have him arrested?”
Grasping their arms and pulling himself from the ground, Jesus says simply, “Patience, friends…Patience.”
Shortly after the encounter (and this is where the real Gospel story unfolds), the man was caught, convicted, and sentenced to death by crucifixion. He somehow managed to survive the brutality of the earlier beatings and found himself hanging from a cross, wheezing and raw. Raising his bloodied and bruised head, his eyes met the eyes he never forgot. The eyes of Jesus. And they were staring at him with tears streaming down. And this Jesus hung on a tree like his.
At that moment, all his pain, confusion, and anger were swallowed by the compassion and love of those swollen eyes. And from somewhere within the deepest recesses of his troubled soul, he cried out, “Jesus…remember me!”
Patience had prevailed!
Patience should never look the same to you now.
More on that later…
