2 Peter 3:8-15a
8 But do not ignore this one
fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a
thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as
some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but
all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be
dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be
disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort
of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the
heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?
13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new
earth, where righteousness is at home. 14 Therefore, beloved, while you are
waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or
blemish; 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Waiting. We live in a culture where
waiting is simply seen as unacceptable. Think about it. How many of you have
ever heard, or been a part of a conversation that went like this: “Well my
appointment was at 11:00, so I got there early, around 10:30. I filled out my
paper work and sat in the waiting room, and would you believe I didn’t get
called back until 11:45? As if that wasn’t enough, I didn’t see the doctor ‘til
some time after 12:00! I tell you what, I’m going to have to find another
doctor if I ever have to wait that long again.” Or how many times have you
heard someone say something like this: “You know I had to stop by Wal-Mart the
other day on the way home—I only had pick up two or three things. By the time I
was ready to check out, the line was twenty people long, and they only had two
registers open! You’d think they’d open a few of those other ones so people
wouldn’t have to stand in line waiting so long.” Waiting just isn’t something
we’re willing to do voluntarily. It’s an inconvenience to have to wait. We have
lives to live, schedules to keep, fun to have. Who has the time to wait? We
already spend an average of two weeks of our lifetime waiting at stop
lights—two whole weeks![1]
Just imagine how much time we might spend waiting in line at the bank, or at
the restaurant for our dinner to come! With that sort of knowledge hanging in
the air, no wonder we don’t have the patience to wait!
But what if we have something worth
waiting for? Ah, now that’s a different story. Don’t believe me? Ask any Texan
who’s ever slow-smoked a brisket over the smoldering embers of a mesquite limb.
They’ll wait for hours to be sure the smoke is just right and then wait even
longer for the meat to reach that perfect balance of flavor. Or ask the baker
who’s filling an order for sourdough bread as he waits for the ingredients to
be ready for mixing just to wait then for the dough to rise before baking. Or
even ask the expectant couple who wait for the birth of their child; there’s
nothing on earth that would keep them from waiting for the right time for their
child to be born.
It’s with that same disposition that
we come to this season of waiting, the season of Advent. It is a time when we
wait for something worth waiting for—the arrival of Christ. Yes, we wait for
that day when we shall celebrate his birth, but we also wait for that coming
day when Christ shall return to the earth again. But waiting can be hard,
especially if we fail to live as if what we are waiting for is worth our time,
even our very lives.
Peace. We live in a culture where
peace is all too often scarce, and when we have it, we live in the constant
fear that we just might lose it. How often have you turned on the television to
see images of soldiers half a world away with guns slung over their shoulders
as they walk beside tanks or humvees? How many times have you opened the paper in
the past year to stories of murder, domestic abuse, or gang violence? We all
live in a country that spends more on its military than the next fifteen
countries combined![2]
Not only is peace scarce, but in many cases (as we can surely attest to in our
own county) it’s bad for business. To some degree I think we all want peace,
but it’s the other costs of peace that we often can’t stomach.
As followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ, however, we are called to be people of peace, and that is why I find it
so fitting that we mark this Sunday in Advent as the Sunday of peace. In this
season of waiting, our hearts and minds are called to reflect on peace. If I’m
honest with you though, I sometimes have a hard time seeing the relationship
between peace and waiting. Perhaps that’s because, for me, waiting creates
anxiety and worry, not peace. If I have to wait too long for something I begin
to doubt it will ever come; I begin to worry about whether I’ve followed all
the right steps to bring it about; I grow anxious as the time crawls by without
any sign of change. I have to believe our early brothers and sisters had similar
feelings of anxiety during the early years of the Church. Time had gone by;
they had waited on the arrival of the Lord; yet nothing seemed to have changed.
I can imagine what they must have
been thinking in those early decades of the Church’s history. Jesus had
ascended to heaven, promising to return; the apostles preached about Christ’s
second coming and how he would bring the fullness of the kingdom of God to the
earth. But the longer they waited, the more it seemed he wasn’t coming. In
fact, the longer they waited the worse it seemed to get. There were false
teachers rising up in the church, those who were misleading believers in
regards to the nature of God in Christ. The whole of the Roman Empire seemed to
be turning on them as Christians became the new favorite scapegoat for Rome’s
troubles. Yes, it seemed as if in waiting for Christ’s return the early Church
experienced anything but peace. It was into this tense atmosphere of waiting
that the letter we call 2 Peter emerged.
For those early Christians dealing
with such difficulties in the midst of their waiting, the author of this
epistle alludes to a line from the ninetieth Psalm in verse 8 when he says, “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved,
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are
like one day.” In the middle of their waiting perhaps they had grown to
believe that the Lord just wasn’t coming back, that he had somehow forgotten or
given up. So the author continues in verse
9: “The Lord is not slow about his
promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to
perish, but all to come to repentance.” While waiting for what seemed
like too long, those early believers were beginning to have their doubts about
the Lord’s return. What better way to help ease such doubts, then, than with
great apocalyptic images of what that day will be like? In verses ten the author continues, “But the day of the Lord will
come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and
the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is
done on it will be disclosed.”
By this time, I think that those
early believers would have heard all kinds of words like these, words
describing what that day would be like, words like those that fill the pages of
Jesus’ Revelation to John. As a matter of fact, haven’t we heard all kinds of
words like these, words about how the “end of days” is upon us? Haven’t we been
reminded time and time again that we are living in the terminal years of
history, and that all of the so-called “end time prophecies” point to our
nation, to this generation?
While I have my own doubts about
such interpretations of Scripture, I still can’t help but wonder that if all
these things are going to come to pass soon, then what should we be doing now?
If all these things are predetermined to happen in the near (or not so near)
future, what should we, as believers and followers of Jesus, be doing now? Well,
it seems to me that the author of 2 Peter was already prepared to answer such
questions, so in verses 11 through 13 he
writes, “Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of
persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for
and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will
be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in
accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where
righteousness is at home.” In
other words, “Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you
see how essential it is to live a holy life? …. The galaxies will burn up and
the elements melt down that day - but we'll hardly notice. We'll be looking the
other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all
landscaped with righteousness.”[3]
Ok…so…we wait. And while we’re
waiting we should live holy lives. Got it. But there again is the whole trouble
of waiting. If all these things are certainly going to happen, then why doesn’t
God just let them loose now? After all, why put off for tomorrow what you can
do today? Why allow the world to keep spinning and pain and devastation
continue on? Why allow another day to pass on a world stricken with AIDS, war,
hunger, and greed? Why not just cash it all in now and bring that “promised new
heavens and earth, all landscaped with righteousness” now?
Well there again, Scripture and the
author of our epistle has an answer—a worthy answer—for us in verse 14: “Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to
be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish.” Why does God put
off his return? Only He knows; it isn’t up to us to know or spend our time
trying to figure it out. It’s up to us to wait, and while we wait we ought to
seek to live each and every day striving to be found by him at peace,
without
spot or blemish. Think about it this way, we may not know when the
Master will return, but we do know He what he has called us to be about while
He is away. While the Lord tarries we are to be about the work of the kingdom,
and the work of the kingdom is the work of peace. As we are called to do the
will of God on this earth, we are called to be His ambassadors of peace. We are
called to make peace in the middle of a violent world, to calm anger, heal
wounds, and bring people from all walks of life together in the saving grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Why does God wait so long to bring about the kingdom? He
waits so that you and I, those of us called by his name, have the time and
opportunity to bring that peace, that salvation, to the ends of the earth, for
the final words of our passage today tell us, “regard the patience of our Lord as
salvation.”
In this season of waiting, our
memories are hearkened back to Bethlehem while our hearts are called forward to
that coming day when the Lord will return and bring new heavens and a new
earth, where righteousness is at home. Today we reflect on the peace
that came on that first Christmas Day, on the peace that is coming with the
fullness of the Kingdom, and on the peace that we are called to carry to the
ends of the earth…while we wait.
Let us pray…
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