Second Sunday of Advent - 2 Peter 3:8-14

Introduction:

I get Advent. I know what it is like to be in between two pivotal life events in one’s life. In 1988, I lost my wife Rita to a heart attack. I lived in a time of two advents - the coming of Rita into my life, and the coming of Regina into my life. I knew hopelessness in that in between time. I knew the devastation of the followers of Jesus. But I did not know the living hope of the advent season. That is, not until a year or two after I met Regina. The blinders finally fell off my eyes. The light came in and illuminated the darkness in the heart, and hope sprung up out of the decay of my former life. Jesus makes a difference. In time, living hope replaced the deadness of hopelessness.

2 Peter 3:8-14

Let’s talk about Advent and 2 Peter. In Advent we hold in tension the present age and the future promises of God when all will be put right. As I said last week, Fleming Rutledge speaks to Advent in the Christian calendar, as a time between two advents: the Jesus coming, and Jesus will come.

It is believed that this letter by Peter to the faithful is one of the last letters written that is in the New Testament. Followers of Jesus, the gathered of the Messiah, had been waiting a long time for his return. Like children, they were becoming restless. They asked and asked, “are we there yet?”

2 Peter 3:8 - it is written the “beloved.” “We understand that to the Lord (Jesus) one day is like a thousand years, and thousand years are like one day.” This is similarly stated in Psalm 90:4. The faithful questioned why Jesus had not returned as promise - an inpatient Christian or maybe an unbeliever who chides the Christian for believing in such fairy tales? Are we impatient waiting for God to act, so impatient that we might try to take matters into our own hands?

Peter has seen the church already go through some difficult and hard times. Persecution of the followers of Jesus was widespread throughout the Roman empire. The persecution came from Jew and Gentile.

Despite growth in gatherings of the faithful, they were yet a very small part of the population. They were mostly marginalized people on the outside of influence and power. The only power they had was the belief that Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew Scriptures, that Jesus was the expected Messiah, that Jesus had launched the coming of the kingdom of God with his death and resurrection.

However, with his death, many despaired. The pall of hopelessness fell over them. They were often influenced by other voices outside of the church. Just like today, many voices encouraged them to leave the path of One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Peter reminded them(and us) they were not without hope. Followers were called to be patient and continue to serve God with holiness and godliness, for God remains present in the world and is at work.

Let’s think back to the OT. In Genesis we read of a two prong promise by God “so that” Abraham and his people would be a community that lives a distinctive life in God; and “so that” they would bless the nations. Such work requires patience, long suffering, and a counter-intuitive stance that if we all took care of each other we all would be better for it.

Waiting and Preparing

Waiting is a very static image; bearing witness is a very active image. Mother Teresa comes to mind. Most of us have heard of her devotion to God through her work for the poorest of India. What many of us do not know that she suffered severe depression most of her life. Yet, she did not wait on the second coming, she bore witness to the most marginalized creatures on the face of the earth that God was present and would listen. She prayed with the very sick and the very dying.

From David Fitch:

“Advent affords us the wherewithal to learn the dispositions of love, joy, hope, and peace that we must tend to if indeed we are to receive the Christ child and his holy presence into our lives, and live in hopeful anticipation of the final completion of the Kingdom in Christ’s second coming. If we can allow ourselves to be taken along, we will experience the sheer wonder of it all.”

“One of the Advent themes I love that has become so central to my own work is the notion acted out by John the Baptist of “preparing the way of the Lord”. Imagine our God coming into the world, humbly, vulnerably, as a babe in a manger. And so, because he comes in such a humble way, this God could easily be missed. We must, therefore, be like John the Baptist: prepare the way for the Lord to come, open space for him to be present and be recognized among us. We must wait, not be in control. We must make space for him in our lives. This is the nature of our God who comes at Christmas. I don’t know where my Christian life would be apart from this central insight learned in the process of Advent.”

Fleming Rutledge that we do not change the world, but God does. The faithful are called to not only wait, but also to participate in what God is already doing. Our role is to be witness bearers. To be preparers. We are not the heroes or heroines of the story. We are not the master chef that puts together the feast of feast. We are preparers. We chop the vegetables. We flay the fish, butcher the meat. We are sous chefs that do the cooking according to the instructions we have received. We are the wait staff carefully taking out the meal to the waiting patrons that they might be awed by the work of the chef. Our names will not be honored and remembered. Only one name will be remembered. For us Christians it will be Jesus Christ, Lord, Messiah, King of kings, Lord of lords, Son of God, God with us, Immanuel.

Advent Speaks to Us Now

For me Advent is more beautiful and satisfying than Christmas, especially the commercialized form of Christmas that is commonly practiced in homes and churches today. Christmas describes an event that has occurred. At Christmas we remember that God became flesh in the innocence of a new born in a lowly state.

Advent, however, speaks to our lives now. Advent speaks peace and beauty in the reality of a brutal, hostile, and unloving world. It says there is an alternative to what the world that is true reality - truth, the way, and life.

Advent is a time when God gathers his own around him, when he tells them not to fret, not to worry, but to work with him to be witnesses of his goodness.

We are in a difficult time. Being witnesses of God’s goodness seems to be impossible when we can not gather in small or large groups.

But we have a number ways of doing just that. We can use email. We can use snail mail. Is there anyone of you who doesn’t have a telephone of some sort? We can use the telephone! We can call someone and tell them that God loves them and that you do too. You can call and share some Scripture. Call and share the gospel story - the story of Jesus. Call some this week and read them this passage for 2 Peter.