Sermon preached at a Lutheran congregation last week.  I was guest preaching, so I had to make more general context assumptions than usual.  I enjoyed exploring advent waiting in regards to Christ’s second coming, but continue to wonder how such ideas are best put into practice.

Wait on the Lord

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Advent means “coming.” I don’t need to tell good Lutherans that. This is a season of waiting, of expectation, for Christ’s coming on Christmas Day. So with the whole church, we wait: lighting candles, singing services, counting down each Sunday until, with Christmas joy, we celebrate God’s incarnation. Waiting, faithfully, for Christ’s coming at Christmas.

But there’s another side to Christ’s coming, one that, generally speaking, us mainline Christians get a bit nervous to discuss. It’s the reason, after Charles sent me today’s lections, that I had some second thoughts about preaching at tonight’s service. This reason gives some of us hope to get out of bed each morning, and for others, it’s the farthest thing from our minds, a scary and strange idea that we just rather not consider.

Advent means “coming” in another way: Christ’s “second coming.” Christ’s return. –and it’s not all elves and reindeers, and would you believe this: my Bible doesn’t have one mention of snow flakes falling while chestnuts roast over an open fire?!

Tonight’s lection from 2 Peter is all about Christ’s coming again, “The day of the Lord” Peter calls it, but that day isn’t December 25th at all.

It’s that other day, the timing of it is rather fuzzy, after all “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” but its that day, that second-coming-day, about which Peter is concerned.

If we read our Bibles carefully, we’ll notice how often New Testament texts speak of that coming day. Author Phyllis Tickle did just that last year, she published a book called The Words of Jesus that snipped out all the words of Jesus in the gospels and set them on the page without transitions or context or the rest of the story–just Jesus’ words–sort of a red letter edition of the Bible with only the red letters.

Tickle said what surprised her most about the project was how much Jesus spoke about the end days, the coming day when God would reconcile all to Godself. We forget about these sayings of Jesus. Though we pray them every week: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, we don’t always take them to heart.

I’ve heard told a story about one New Testament scholar who every day would wake up, stretch, and walk to the window of his bedroom and open the blinds. Then he’d pray the same prayer every morning. Short, succinct, longing. Every morning he’d pray: “Is it today Lord? Is it today?”

These aren’t new questions, they’re the questions Peter’s community were struggling with when he wrote 2 Peter. It was then several generations after Jesus’ death, and the people were met with the hard truth: Jesus had not yet returned.

Their opponents said the delay was proof that he would not come. The doubters cemented their stances against the Christ-followers. And, like you and I might be, Peter’s community was worried. They found themselves asking, “Is he ever going to get here?”

Anyone who has taken a long car trip with a child knows, waiting is hard. Anyone who has checked the mail anxiously expecting an admissions letter knows, waiting is hard. Anyone who has kept vigil beside a hospital bed, crying and worried, holding a loved-one’s hand knows, waiting is hard.
Peter gets it too, waiting is hard. Perhaps he was persecuted for his beliefs like other Christians of his day. Perhaps he was ostracized by his family for his praying, daily, for Jesus’ return. Perhaps he had struggles along the way, but he knows his Bible and echoes Amos and Joel and Isaiah: “The day of the Lord will come.”

“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness” Peter writes, “but is patient with you, not wanting any one of you to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

But the day of the Lord will come, Peter writes, like a thief in the night. And then he says the heavens will pass away with a bang, and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and all that is done on the earth will be disclosed. One translation puts it: “Then the earth and everything on it will be seen for what they are.”

Now Peter’s description of Jesus’ return is a bit different than those of other Biblical writers. 2 Peter says it will come “like a thief in the night” while 2 Thessalonians suggests there will be a visible signal that the end is near. There’s other differences too.

We talked about this text in my Creation, New Creation, and Ecology course this semester at Columbia Seminary. Most of the texts about the end times in the Bible make it pretty clear that in that day the earth will not be destroyed, will not pass away completely, but will be renewed, revitalized–not wiped away forever, but made perfect forever.

Our text this evening a bit unclear when it comes to details about the end times. Thanks to secular theology and the Left Behind series of books and movies, we probably read Peter’s words, “the elements will be dissolved with fire, and all the earth and everything on it will be disclosed” and think complete total destruction, that Peter figured the earth would be wiped away forever.

I don’t think that’s what Peter meant, though. “We wait for a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is home” he says. New heavens, I think he meant, but not brand new heavens. New because, this time, righteousness is truly home on earth. New because there is no longer war any more. New because, finally, thy will is done on earth as it is in heaven. As someone has put it: heaven is coming, but it’s not the end of the world.

Now Peter isn’t very descriptive about what this new creation will look like, but he does say, “All things are to be disclosed in this way.”
Nobody, no thing, can escape it….but this doesn’t seem to worry Peter, for God’s promise is good and strong, it brings a renewed earthly home of righteousness. There is no rapture–a word not found in the Bible–no battle or Armageddon. Instead, Peter waits with great hope and anticipation, waiting with all the world for God to remake the earth into God’s perfection and peace.

In my Creation and Ecology class, we considered what this says about how we are to treat the earth–not as something that will be discarded at the end, but reused, recycled even, into God’s perfected kingdom. So how we treat the earth reflects how we consider God’s new creation. Think about that next time you fill up your tank or throw away that coke can.

At the end of the day, though, Peter is more worked up about disposition than details. Between the already of Christ having come, and the not yet of Christ’s return, Peter tells his community:

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting, strive to be at peace.
Peace?! When God is coming to dissolve the earth with fire? Peace?! When we do not know the time or the hour. Peace?! When wars rage, and disease lingers, and jobs are lost, and famine reigns, and Christmas is coming but we’re not ready and we’re not even sure we want to celebrate.

Strive to be at peace. Peter was certainly one for setting demanding goals.

But that’s what he says, strive to be at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

My wife will tell you, I’m not very good at waiting patiently. I despise long lines. I’ll go to great lengths to avoid rush hour traffic. I never go to a doctor’s office without a book to pass the time waiting. So, thank goodness, I don’t have to give you any advice on waiting patiently. Peter does.

And Peter’s instructions are simple (dare I say Lutheran even?–Peter points to God. “Wait in peace,” Peter says, “regarding the patience of our Lord as salvation; the patience of our Lord.”
As happens with our faith, it’s not about our abilities after all, not about us saving ourselves–thank goodness. Not about our works, or our purity or perfection. Christ’s return isn’t on our time schedule or depending on our faithfulness. God is in control. Christ is coming, Peter says, be at peace.

[break]

Regard Christ’s patience, Peter says.
Rest in God’s time; it’s different than ours.
Await Jesus in hope, but do so in patience.

Advent means “coming.”
Christ has come, and Christ is coming again.
Wait patiently, and be at peace.