Luke 21:19

PATIENCE

‘In your patience possess ye your souls.’

Luke 21:19

I. Patience never seems to be an heroic remedy, least of all in the face of action so overwhelming and scenes so terrific as those which Christ predicted as He sat with that little knot of anxious men on the summit of Olivet on that momentous evening.

II. And yet there are times when patience is by no means a counsel of despair, but when rather the contest lies between the power of inflicting and the power of bearing, when in the working out of great issues all depends on the capacity of those involved to bide their time, to refuse to be crushed, to hold out until the right moment.

III. So here, in answer to their nervous question as to the ‘when’ and ‘how,’ our Lord is impressing on them that, as far as they are concerned, all will depend on their powers of bearing, that they are not to regard themselves as so many pawns on the board which will be sacrificed to the movements of the bigger pieces, that every individual counts with God, that the patience will have to last on through suffering, even possibly through physical death; that although they may be hated and persecuted by friends, and in some cases put to death, yet still in the highest sense not a hair of their heads should perish. And, therefore, He would say, ‘Make your souls your own.’ Keep your heads, keep your independence, be as those who can say that their souls are their own, and so (in accordance with another reading of these words) they shall win their souls, and save their lives, in all that makes life valuable, in all that counts as living.

Rev. Canon Newbolt.

Illustrations

(1) ‘The historian of the Crimean War has told us of the trial of courage which came upon our young soldiers at the battle of the Alma, when they were halted for a considerable time under fire, with no impetuosity of onslaught, nothing to take the chill from their blood or to inspire them with a feeling of action—simply to stand and be shot at, and to be told this was war.’

(2) ‘The doctors will tell us of one of the most common and dangerous diseases which attack our suffering humanity that nothing that medical skill can do will arrest it, only the smallest alleviations are possible, everything must be directed to brace up the patient to endure the blows of the storm while the tempest is at its height. It is a battle between onslaught and endurance until the crisis is past.’