14 Oct 08 — Some thoughts about God's Patience

Spend anytime reading Numbers and you will most likely come to the conclusion that God has a limit when it comes to patience and that there are grave consequences to sin. Consider the period of about two years that saw the great miracles in Egypt which led to the Exodus through the Red Sea and the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai, with all the daily miracles of provisioning in between, and you can’t help but understand that God has held up God’s part of the Promise. But likewise, any survey of Israel’s response, full of grumbling, rebellion, and lacking in gratitude would lead even the greatest of Saints to despair. God’s Response to this was “draconian” — none except Caleb and Joshua of the Exodus generation — two families who had remained faithful — would live long enough to enter into the Promised Land. And 38 and a half years of wandering in the wilderness began.

If that was the only story we had of God’s Response to Sin and Ingratitude, we would be warranted in claiming that God has a “hair-trigger” response when it comes to sin, and we would be perfectly justified in focusing on warning ourselves and others about God’s Wrath and Anger. But Numbers is not the only story. Indeed, as we look at the historical stories of the Judges and Kings, on down to the fullness of time bringing in Jesus’ era we see a remarkable increase in God’s Patience. For instance, it would be multiple generations of kings acting badly before the Assyrians and Babylonians would conquer Northern and Southern Israel.

And then God decided to solve God’s Problem with rebellious and sinful Humanity once and for all. God became one of us, and God had a change of heart. God realized it took more than an impersonal law from a God standing off at a distance to adequately bring about the obedience of love that God so earnestly desired. God learned something extraordinary about Patience when God walked among us as Jesus. As omnipotent and omniscient as God is, it took walking in human form for the fullness of our limitations to register to God. (By the way, that’s why I claim that unless you have walked in an oppressed people’s shoes you can’t adequately counsel them or demand that they conform to your orthodoxy.)

Jesus told Peter to forgive infinitely — i.e., be forever patient. Jesus told two of his disciples who had asked if they should have God rain down fire and brimstone on a village that did not accept him, “God forbid!” — i.e., if not this time, when you return, you will have another opportunity to make me real to them. In these and many other episodes, God announced through Jesus God’s new understanding of the depths and lengths of patience that God and we must have in dealing with ourselves and others. And that means that Numbers is telling us where we began, not where we are supposed to be living, nor where we are supposed to be going. So, as we like to say, “as God has so loved us, we love you,” so also we should say, “as God has been patient with us, so we must be patient with you.” Not always easy; but always necessary.