2 Peter 3:1-15

God is with us in our waiting

It seems that this year winter has come fast upon us, and already, this early in December the nights are bitter cold, and almost as long as they get. When winter comes I often think of the world of Narnia that we are introduced to in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Young Lucy steps into this wintry wonderland, hidden in the back of her wardrobe, in the house that her and her siblings are living in exile during WWII England. She discovers that this magical world of Narnia is also in deep crisis, because there, to the dismay of the people who live there, it is always winter, and never spring, a land cursed by the White Witch. I’m sure there are at least a few of us who are celebrating the arrival of winter, soon enough we’ll be out on the ski hills, in the ice fishing hut, on the snowmobile. But usually by the time February comes around, most of us are starting to get fairly fed up of having to lug winter clothes around, of driving home in the dark, of the fact that when you go out to walk the dog, it hurts to breathe the ice cold air. The Narnians in Lewis’ story are stuck in an eternal February, some can’t event remember what a spring leaf looks like.

The churches that Peter is writing to are in somewhat of a similar state. Peter is writing as a man nearing the end of his life, many of the other apostles have passed away by this point, and Jesus, who promised the apostles that he would be returning in the flesh very soon, has not yet come. Jesus promised he would back to fully bring his Kingdom, the day of the Lord, to judge the wicked. There are some in these churches who would have heard of Jesus’ good news from the lips of the apostles, and from Paul, but since then there have been weddings, children born, baptisms, and funerals for a great many of that generation that lived in the days of the apostles. Now Peter, who Jesus said would be the rock upon which the church would be founded, has come to his final days, and where is Jesus? Now, as the apostles are dying off, the promise of the spring of Jesus’ long-awaited return seems like it’s slipping away, with the threat of persecution and exile on the horizon. This early church wondering: will winter ever end?

And here we sit this morning, centuries and millennia have passed, each one with many, many weddings and childbirths, and funerals of their own, great nations have risen and fallen, and Jesus has not yet come. A long winter indeed. As Ben talked about last week, many, perhaps in impatience, have tried to predict, from signs in the bible and in the world, the precise date that he’ll definitely come back this time, and those come and pass. Peter writes to the church about scoffers, who are looking at them saying “you fools…” “Where is God’s promised return? Where is the coming he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” In other words: “nothing ever changes, this winter won’t end! Spring will never come!”

In the context of the rest of the letter, it seems that these scoffers that Peter is referring to are actually false teachers who are part of the churches themselves, those who would call themselves Christians! They’ve given up on the idea of Jesus’ return and scoff at it, and they have instead adopted the Greek understanding the future from their culture. It’s not unlike how today some liberal, not politically liberal but theologically liberal, Christians adopt our culture’s understanding of the future and say “look, this Jesus, he was a wise teacher, a beautiful example to follow and all that… but this ‘Day of the Lord,’ that the bible talks about, that’s really just Jewish mythology, it’s not real, or scientifically accurate.” “No, we know that the world has sort of just been chugging on since the big bang and we’re just really bald apes that live on a rock flying through space, and all we can do is really just make the most of it and do the best we can to make the world a better place for we die, Jesus showed us the way and all, but now it’s really up us.” Peter thinks that there’s a big problem with thinking this way.

God is with us as he’s coming.

This Day of the Lord is a concept that gets developed throughout the bible, it’s connected to passover, celebrating when God delivers Israel from Egypt. So The Day of the Lord is a day that God delivers his chosen people from oppression. But later in the Bible, The Day of the Lord is turned back on Israel. Israel, God’s chosen people, has been living unholy, ungodly lives, and they find themselves on the receiving end of God’s wrath and exiled from the land he promised them. When Jesus comes, he says that there will be one final Day of the Lord, when he returns, when his chosen people will be freed not just from political oppressors, but from the oppressor that is evil itself, that corrupts the human heart, that corrupts creation, that makes humans oppress one another and live unholy and ungodly lives. This is the evil that brought Pharaoh to enslave Israel, and it’s the same evil that causes the Israelites to abandon God’s ways, and seek after their own wicked ways. This forever-winter world will melt, bringing in the spring, and then summer of God’s kingdom, where righteousness lives.

Peter is saying if you live like the Day of the Lord will never come, you are doomed to live hedonistically. That is: everything you do and every choice you make will only be done through the lens of how can this be valuable to yourself. You may look to Jesus as a model for a “good” life, to be a “good person,” the only reason you have to live anything like him is to make yourself feel better, or because you believe that like karma, good works bring good things back around to you. You might go to church, you might give to the poor, you might act kindly and give selflessly, but when pressed for the reason you have for doing so, all you can really say is “because it feels better to do that,” or that “research shows that if you act that way you live longer,” “or, statistics show that people who live this way are statistically happier.” Or you might get really invested into politics, and political causes, because the best you can do with this life that you have is to make this world a better place, and to do that we need to dial in exactly the right political policy and but exactly the right people in power. You’d do all this, only to make the best of a world, that is still forever winter, and never spring.

Peter is saying, don’t you see that once you say that God has abandoned the project and isn’t coming back, all you’ve done is made an excuse to live according to whatever evil desires you have? That’s what these scoffers are doing. Peter is saying that our tendency to say God isn’t coming back really is just a desire to live like we’re not accountable to him. You can say “be a good person,” “what would Jesus do,” or “do unto others” all you like, but if you don’t live like God is coming back than all of that is really just a show. If history has no end, and Jesus is not coming back to judge it, you have no one to answer for the contents of your heart. And, there is no political system or part or figure that will set the world in order, as if that hasn’t been made clear in recent years. The political figure the whole world is waiting for is the true, good, King Jesus, who will begin his rule on the Day of the Lord.

Peter says the idea that God is dead, or that he’s abandoned humanity is foolish. He says these scoffers who believe that have conveniently allowed themselves to forget what it looks like when God abandons humanity. He points to Noah and the flood. This world belongs to God, and he’s the one who is sustaining it and has brought it to order out of chaos. When he abandons humanity, he releases the waters that the pulled the earth out of when he created it and lets them flood it again. Maybe the next flood would look like a nuclear disaster, or a climate catastrophe, but it would only occur because God willed it to be. But after the flood, God promised he wouldn’t do that. Jesus said the Kingdom is coming.

But, no sign of Jesus yet. Why hasn’t he come? Why such a long delay, when he said he would be back soon? ”For. . .the Lord”, Peter says, ”a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.” ”He’s not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient towards you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” The two thousand years that have passed between Jesus’ day and our are not so terribly long for God. We look around and all we see is winter, this winter that has seemed to go on forever. For God it’s been no time at all. He is content to let this story unfold a little more, for some more marriages, for some more funerals, for some more child births, and some more baptisms, because all of these, and so much in between them point to this amazing story that He has penned from the beginning of time. These like little warm living rooms away from the cold, or like the stunning beauty of a fresh snowfall, point to the goodness and glory of God.

Living, God with us.

At the halfway point of the story in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy and her siblings fear that the White Witch on her wicked sled has caught them. But they look up to see to their delight “a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as holly-berries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest.”The sight of Father Christmas, Santa Claus. "I've come at last," said he."[The White Witch] has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan (That is God’s name in the world of Narnia)is on the move. The Witch's magic is weakening." Lewis understands why we celebrate Christmas the way we do. Why we light up our houses and put trees in them. Why Saint Nicholas comes bearing gifts.

Because when Jesus was born, so was born the light of the world, right in the middle of the dark and long winter. Jesus’ birth means that even in the long nights that have come upon us there is light that has come. The Christmas tree in our living room is decorated with balls like fruit of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, it’s like we’re back there with God again. Saint Nicholas, an important figure in the history of our church reminds us of the coming bountiful kingdom, full of gifts and joy. All of these things are reminders that Aslan, Jesus, is on the move, and he’s coming soon!

We don’t live in a world where it is always Winter, and never Spring. It’s easy for us to forget that. It’s easy to let the days just go by filling them with busyness and comfort. If you live in a world with no Spring, where Jesus is not coming back, then you live in a posture of “better make the most of it, it’s all I’ve got after all.” But if you live knowing that spring is coming, that Jesus is coming back soon to bring about his kingdom of plenty, you can actually live selflessly! Because you know that the you are more than well provided for, that there’s plenty to go around. You can live this way not out of your own stored up supplies that are bound to run out before the end of the long winter, rather you know very soon there is coming a spring and summer with fruit and warmth to share! You won’t be unsettled when your political leaders fail you miserably, because you know, soon, and very soon, the true good King will rule in fairness and justice forever.

Peter says that when Jesus comes, it will be like a thief. It will be sooner than we’re ready for. So he says to this church: don’t get stuck living like it’s forever winter, don’t life as if you have no hope. Live ”holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of the Lord and speed its coming.” You may as well live as if Spring is here already! As Christians we live lives as if Jesus is King now! It isn’t up to us to make this world a better place, we’re not up to task. It’s God’s working through us, as king of our hearts that will bring about the kingdom where righteousness dwells.