Waiting for the Avenger

Our Lord and Master gave a command that saves. He says: “The one who endures to the end will be saved.” And again he says: “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We have to endure and hold out, dear brothers, so that, having been let into the hope of truth and freedom, we may arrive at truth and freedom themselves. The very fact that we are Christians is the substance of faith and hope. But for that hope and faith to reach what they are for, patience is needed. We are not chasing present glory but future glory, as Paul the apostle also warns us: “We are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope — for what a man sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it by patience.” So waiting and patience are needed, if we are to finish being what we have begun to be and to receive what we believe and hope for, in the way God himself has shown. [a]

In another place the same apostle instructs the righteous, and those who do good works, and those who store up treasure for themselves in heaven with the increase that comes of lending to God — he instructs them that they too must be patient, and teaches them: “So then, while we have time, let us work at what is good toward everyone, and especially toward those of the household of faith. And let us not give out in doing good, for in its own season we will reap.” He is warning that no one should give out impatiently in the middle of his work; that no one should be called away or worn down by testing and stop halfway through the praise, on the very road to glory. For then what is already past is lost, and what has been begun stops short of ever being finished. As it is written: “The righteousness of the righteous man will not rescue him on whatever day he breaks the law.” And again: “Hold on to what you have, so that no one takes your crown.” That word urges us to hold out with patience and courage, so that the man who is straining toward the crown, with the praise now close at hand, may be crowned by keeping his patience to the end.

But patience, dear brothers, does not only stand guard over what is good; it also drives off what is evil. Moving in step with the Holy Spirit, at home with what is heavenly and divine, it fights with the defense of its own strength against the deeds of the flesh and the body, by which the soul is attacked and taken. Let us look briefly at a few things out of many, so that the rest may be understood from a few. Adultery, fraud, murder — these are crimes that kill. Let patience be strong and steady in the heart, and then the body that has been made holy, God’s own temple, is not polluted by adultery; the innocence that has been dedicated to righteousness is not stained by the infection of fraud; and the hand that has carried the thanksgiving is not spotted with the sword and with blood. [e]

Love is the bond of brotherhood, the foundation of peace, the strength and safeguard of unity. It is greater than both hope and faith. It goes beyond good works and beyond martyrdoms. It will stay with us always, eternal with God in the kingdom of heaven. Take patience away from love, and love, stripped of it, does not last. Take away from it the substance of bearing and enduring, and it goes on with no roots and no strength. In the end, when the apostle wanted to speak about love, he joined endurance and patience to it. He says: “Love is patient; love is kind; love does not envy, is not puffed up, is not provoked, does not think evil; it loves all things, believes all things, hopes all things, bears all things.” From that he shows that love can keep going and hold on, because it knows how to endure everything. And in another place he says: “Bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He proved that neither unity nor peace can be kept unless brothers hold one another up by putting up with one another, and keep the bond of harmony by the help of patience. [g]

And what else? That you should not swear or curse. That you should not ask for your goods back when they have been taken from you. That when you get a slap, you should turn your other cheek to the man who struck you. That you should forgive a brother who sins against you not seven times but seventy times seven — and beyond that, all his sins together. That you should love your enemies. That you should pray for your opponents and for the men who persecute you. Can you do any of it unless you keep the steadiness of patience and endurance? We see this done in the case of Stephen. When he was killed by the Jews with violence and stoning, he did not ask for vengeance for himself, but for pardon for his murderers. He said: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” That is how the first martyr of Christ had to be. Running out ahead of the martyrs who would follow him in a glorious death, he was not only a preacher of the Lord’s suffering but an imitator of his most patient gentleness. [i]

What am I to say about anger, about discord, about quarreling — things that ought not to be found in a Christian at all? Let there be patience in the heart, and these can find no room there; and if they do try to get in, they are quickly shut out and go, so that a peaceful home may remain in the heart, where the God of peace is glad to live. In the end the apostle warns us and teaches us: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and anger and rage and shouting and slander be put away from you.” For if a Christian has got clear of rage and of the quarreling that comes out of the flesh, as a man gets clear of a hurricane at sea, and has already begun to be calm and gentle in the harbor of Christ, then he ought not to let anger or discord inside his heart at all, since he must not return evil for evil or carry hatred.

Patience is needed as well for the various ills of the flesh, and for the frequent, heavy torments of the body that wear down and harass the human race every day. When that first command was broken, bodily strength went out along with immortality, and weakness came in along with death; and strength cannot be received back until immortality has been received back too. So in this frailty and weakness of the body we have to struggle and fight all the time, and that struggle and that fight cannot be kept up except by the strength of patience. Since we are to be examined and searched out, all kinds of suffering are brought in, and many sorts of testing are laid on us: by the loss of property, by the heat of fevers, by the torment of wounds, by the loss of those dear to us. And nothing marks off the unrighteous man from the righteous more than this — that in trouble the unrighteous man complains impatiently and speaks against God, while the righteous man is proved by his patience. As it is written: “Endure in pain, and be patient in your humbling; for gold and silver are tested in the fire.” [l]

That is how Job was searched out and proved, and lifted to the very highest peak of praise by the strength of patience. What darts the devil shot at him! What tortures were brought in! The loss of his estate is inflicted; the stripping away of his many children is decreed. The master, rich in property, and the father, richer still in children, is suddenly neither master nor father. The wasting of sores is added; and on top of that a devouring plague of worms eats away his rotting, wasting limbs. And so that nothing at all should be left that Job did not go through in his trials, the devil arms his wife as well, falling back on that old trick of his wickedness, as if he could deceive and mislead everyone through women, exactly as he did at the beginning of the world. And still Job is not broken down by those hard, repeated struggles; in the middle of his difficulties and trials the blessing of God was not held back from being spoken, by the victory of patience. [m]

Tobit too, after the noble works of his justice and his mercy, was tried by the loss of his eyes; and in the measure that he patiently endured his blindness, in that measure he deserved much of God by the praise of patience.

And so that the good that patience does may shine out still more, dear brothers, let us look at the opposite: at the harm that impatience can do. For as patience is the benefit Christ gives, so impatience is the harm the devil does; and as a man in whom Christ lives and stays is found patient, so a man whose mind the devil’s wickedness has taken over is always impatient. Let us look briefly at the very beginning. The devil could not bear it patiently that man was made in the image of God. That is why he was the first to perish and the first to ruin others. Adam, going against the heavenly command about the deadly food, fell into death by impatience; he did not keep the grace he had received from God under the guard of patience. And to bring Cain to the point of killing his brother, it was over his sacrifice and his gift that he was made impatient. And when Esau came down from the rights of the firstborn to those of the younger son, he lost his place by being impatient for a bowl of stew. [o]

Why was the Jewish people faithless and ungrateful about God’s benefits? Was it not the crime of impatience that first made them leave God? Unable to bear the delay while Moses was conferring with God, they dared to ask for godless gods, so that they might call the head of an ox and a thing shaped out of earth the leaders of their march. And they never let go of their impatience: always impatient of being taught and of being warned by God, they put their prophets and all their righteous men to death, and plunged all the way into the crime of crucifying the Lord and shedding his blood. What is more, impatience makes heretics in the church; and, just as it did with the Jews, it drives them as rebels against the peace and the love of Christ into hostile and raging hatred. And, not to go through them one at a time, absolutely everything that patience builds up into glory by its work, impatience throws down into ruin.

So then, dear brothers, having weighed carefully both the good that patience does and the evil that impatience does, let us hold on with full watchfulness to the patience by which we stay in Christ, so that with Christ we may come to God. That patience is plentiful and takes many forms. It is not held in by narrow limits or shut inside tight boundaries. The strength of patience shows itself far and wide; its fruitfulness and its generosity come from a single source with a single name, but they spread out in overflowing streams along many roads of glory. And nothing we do can reach a full measure of praise unless it takes from patience the substance of its completeness. [q]

It is patience that both commends us to God and keeps us for him. It is patience that calms anger, bridles the tongue, governs the mind, guards peace, rules discipline, breaks the force of lust, holds down the violence of pride, puts out the fire of hatred, checks the power of the rich, relieves the need of the poor, protects a blessed wholeness in virgins, a careful purity in widows, and in those who are joined together in marriage a single love. It makes men humble when things go well, brave when they go badly, and gentle in the face of wrongs and insults. It teaches us to pardon quickly those who do us wrong, and, if you are the one who has done the wrong, to beg long and earnestly. It stands up to testing, it carries persecutions, it brings sufferings and martyrdoms through to the end. It is patience that fortifies the foundations of our faith and makes them firm. It is patience that lifts our growing hope on high. It is patience that steers what we do, so that we may hold to the way of Christ while we walk by his patience. It is patience that keeps us going as sons of God, while we imitate our Father’s patience.

But I know, dear brothers, that a great many people are eager to be avenged quickly on those who treat them harshly and rage at them — whether because of the weight of the wrong or because of the sting of the pain. So this at least must not be left unsaid: that placed as we are in the middle of these storms of a world at odds with itself, and in the persecutions of Jews and of the nations and of heretics as well, we should wait patiently for the day of God’s vengeance, and not rush to avenge our own suffering in a complaining hurry. For it is written: “Wait for me, says the Lord, on the day of my rising up to bear witness; for my judgment is on the gatherings of the nations, to take hold of the kings and pour out my fury on them.” The Lord commands us to wait, and to carry with brave patience the day of vengeance that is coming. And he speaks in the Revelation as well: “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for now the time is near: let the one who keeps on doing harm do harm, and let the filthy man be filthy still; but let the righteous man do things still more righteous, and in the same way let the holy man do things still more holy. Look, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to give back to each man according to what he has done.” [r]

That is why even the martyrs, crying out and pressing toward their vengeance with grief breaking out of them, are told to wait a while longer and to have patience until the times are filled up and the number of the martyrs is complete. He says: “And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar of God the souls of those who had been killed for the word of God and for their testimony; and they cried out with a loud voice: How long, Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who live on the earth? And white robes were given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers is filled up — those who would afterward be killed as they had been.”

As for when the divine vengeance for the blood of the righteous will come, the Holy Spirit declares it through Malachi the prophet: “Look, the day of the Lord is coming, burning like an oven; and all the foreigners and all the wicked will be stubble, and the day that is coming will burn them up, says the Lord.” We read the same thing in the Psalms, where the approach of God the Judge is announced as something to be held in awe for the majesty of his judgment: “God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silent; a fire will burn before him, and around him a great storm. He will call the heaven above and the earth below, so that he may separate his people. Gather his holy ones to him, those who establish his covenant in sacrifices; and the heavens will declare his righteousness, for God is the Judge.” And Isaiah foretells the same things: “For look, the Lord will come like a fire, and his chariot like a storm, to pay back vengeance in anger; for in the fire of the Lord they will be judged, and with his sword they will be wounded.” And again: “The Lord God of hosts will go out and break the war to pieces; he will stir up the battle and cry out against his enemies with strength: I have held my peace — will I hold my peace forever?” [u]

But who is this who says that he has held his peace before, and will not hold his peace forever? Surely it is the one who was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and who, like a lamb in front of its shearer, was without a voice, and so did not open his mouth. Surely it is the one who did not cry out, and whose voice was not heard in the streets. Surely it is the one who was not rebellious and did not contradict, when he gave his back to the whips and his cheeks to the palms of their hands, and did not turn his face away from the foulness of their spitting. Surely it is the one who, when he was accused by the priests and elders, answered nothing, and kept a silence so patient that Pilate wondered at it. This is the one who, though he was silent in his suffering, will not be silent when the time comes for his vengeance. This is our God — that is, not the God of everyone, but of the faithful and the believing; and when he comes openly at his second coming, he will not be silent. For though he came the first time wrapped in humility, he will come openly in power. [v]

Let us wait for him, dear brothers — our Judge and our Avenger, who will avenge, together with himself, the gathering of his church and the whole number of the righteous from the beginning of the world. Let the man who is in a hurry, too impatient for his own revenge, think about this: that even the Avenger himself has not yet been avenged. God the Father appointed that his Son should be worshiped, and the apostle Paul, remembering that divine command, sets it down: “God has lifted him high and given him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow — of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth.” And in the Revelation the angel stops John, who wants to worship him, and says: “See that you do not do it, for I am your fellow servant, and one of your brothers. Worship Jesus the Lord.” [x]

How great the Lord Jesus is, and how great his patience, that the one who is worshiped in heaven is still not avenged on earth! Dear brothers, let us think about his patience in our own persecutions and sufferings. Let us give his coming an obedience full of waiting, and let us not hurry — servants that we are — to be defended in front of our Lord with an eagerness that has neither reverence nor restraint in it. Let us press on and work instead; and keeping watch with our whole heart, steady for every kind of endurance, let us keep the Lord’s commands, so that when that day of anger and vengeance comes, we may not be punished along with the godless and the sinners, but honored with the righteous and with those who fear God.