There used to be a plaque that would show up on people's desks. It read, "God, grant me patience. And I want it right now." I haven't seen it for awhile, and maybe it's because Palm Pilots, instant internet messaging, and microwave ovens have made patience a virtue as quaint as boiled-in starch for shirtfronts. Back in the olden days, when James wrote his letter to the early church, patience was a prized virtue. In just four verses, James gives two examples of patience and two imperatives to be patient. It's just a shame that our new banner does not say, "Patience." It says, "Joy." So the obvious question is, what do patience and joy have to do with each other? I've already told you that patience is both about God (who and what God is) and the end of time. And this means "joy"? This means "joy." It is the theological underpinning for John's question, "Are you the One?" and Jesus' eye-twinkling answer, "What do you think?" It's not only the gospel-writer in the background saying, "I know! I know!" The readers are doing that, too. There is so much suppressed excitement here. Is it joy or is it the season?

Children, have you heard your parents telling you lately to "just be patient?" Man, it seems like my brothers and sister and I used to hear that a lot this time of year. The tree would go up, Mom would bake thousands of cookies, wrapped presents would start appearing under the tree, and all we'd hear was, "Be patient." Patient for the cookies to come out of the oven. Patient to get to Grama's. Patient to open gifts. Patient for Santa. Patient to eat the food we only ate this time of the year. But the kind of patience that we read about in Matthew is not, "Be patient, you'll find out." The kind of patience we read about in Matthew is filled with joy. "You know the answer! Figure it out! Now."

The signs that Jesus lists for John are like your car about to run out of gas, coughing out its last bit of energy from the fumes. But it's downhill to the gas station! If you can just get the car to the hill, and just as the car is slowing to a stop, you reach the hill, and gradually gravity takes over and things are going faster and faster until suddenly you are close enough to the pump! The blind receive their sight, lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them! Momentum is building, and joy comes as a blessing.

What is this joy thing? We see that word everywhere this time of year. Joy on cards, joy on street banners, joy in flashing lights in storefronts, joy in commercial advertisements. This time of year the joy that predominates lasts until the bills start coming in. We're not talking the joy of the BB gun of your dreams under the tree Christmas morning. We are talking that incomprehensible confidence in the goodness of everything, despite the plot development happening around you. This is a confidence that can only be based on a conviction of God's goodness. This time of year it means that, "we know how things turn out, and all of it is only what God intends to be." It isn't even that the bad things happening to you are merely technical details. It's that all of creation is, as it says in Genesis, good in God's eyes.

Years ago, when the car I was driving was hit by an ambulance and I was unconscious for a couple of days, people said to me, "You're lucky to be alive. Aren't you grateful?" I was so baffled by their question. I was grateful to have been hit. I don't know how to explain this. I experienced a sense of joy in the whole event, not because it seemed to point out that "God had saved me for some greater purpose" or even that "God had saved me." The joy was that the accident had occurred at all. The joy was that God was God, and the accident revealed that. Jesus' answer to John isn't based so much on the deaf being able to hear, as it is that the deaf person is no longer defined by deafness. The joy was in finding out that "you" are not a leper, but that "you" are a person who had leprosy. "You" are not an alcoholic, but someone with that addiction. You are "someone." Jesus as the Messiah turns the addiction or deafness or leprosy or mortal illness into a "condition" or a "disease," not a definition of who you are. The joy is that what Jesus offers - because he is the One - the joy is deliverance from the slavery of being defined by anything other than what God chooses to have us defined by. And God chooses to define us by the Person of Jesus.

But here's the trick. "Are you the One?" Jesus answers John in an open-ended way. "You decide. Take a look at the evidence, and you decide whether I AM the One." There are just some things that we prefer answered with more clarity, more concise direction, aren't there? A construction contract is comprised of drawings and specifications. The specifications are the written word picture of what the owner is entitled to. There are different kinds of specifications. One kind of specification tells the contractor that this is the exact product and model to buy and install and that's that. Another kind of specification tells the contractor that this is what a certain part of the building should do or look like, and there's quite a bit of room for leeway and creativity there, as long as the end product meets the spec for function and appearance. Another kind of specification is used when there isn't a model and product number to use, but the contractor is given directions as to how to arrive at the end product. That's a good way of accomplishing construction, but that isn't what the Bible is. There are many people who act as if that is how religion goes. I go to church, I do what the preacher (acting as God's mouthpiece) tells me to do and think. Then, by gum I'm a Full-Fledged Certified Christian. And I don't need to think any more about it. A faith kit, step by step.

Unfortunately, that isn't what Jesus is offering John the Baptist. Even John the Baptist. The guy Jesus says is the greatest prophet ever. Even his cousin John doesn't get a faith kit with step-by-step directions as to how to arrive at the kingdom of God. Nor do we. What we get is the kind of specifications that tell us what the end product is supposed to look like and how it should function. Which is cool, but we don't get a roadmap to get there. We just get the example of Jesus. Nuts.

The Sign of the Times today is supposed to be "joy," not disappointment. So where is the "joy" in this? The joy is in knowing that we are not defined by what holds us back - the limp, the addictions, the inability to see or hear properly, the illness that will take our life. In fact - and this is the scary part - we are set free from what holds us back. Jesus says this? "Go and tell John what you hear and see" (he lists those things that could hold us back, and then he says) "and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense in me."

"Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." I'm offended at this translation, but going from Greek to English is always "interpretation." Another way of saying who the blessed one is, would be "anyone who does not fall away from believing in Jesus" or "anyone who doesn't find Jesus a stumbling block." Anyone, in fact, who finds joy in believing so completely that Jesus is the Messiah, that one is blessed because the kingdom of God happens in his or her life right now. The joy starts with allowing God to love you. That sounds simple enough, but it means more. Allowing God to love you for your right-now-ness. Not for who you will be, for who you will become when you are someone worthy of God's love. Not for who you were, someone who used to contribute to the kingdom of God. Right now. Now that's joy! Doesn't that set you free to believe Jesus is the Messiah, the One we've been waiting for, the One who begins to bring about the kingdom of God in your life? We can opt for joy, we can opt to believe that Jesus shows us how we can participate in the fulfilling of God's promises. "Thy kingdom come."

But we need to decide. We need to decide so completely that it is through us, through the witness of our lives and words, through us that others know their addictions and mortal illnesses and handicaps don't hold them back from joy. These things can't hold us back, because the Messiah comes. And the Messiah comes bringing good news to the poor. The Messiah brings joy! You are already loved!