December 6, 2020
/The Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3: 8-15a; Mark 1:1-8
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
During college, which seems like forever ago, I worked several different jobs. The job I enjoyed the most was working as an on-air personality for a music radio station in Austin. I used to work the graveyard, or overnight shift, and at the top of every hour we had to do the station identification, which was something radio stations back then (and now) were legally required to do.
The station I worked for had an array of various station identifications you choose from, most of which were pretty funny. My favorite was one that began with these words: “Jesus is coming. Look busy!” And then it would roll into the station identification: “107.7 KNNC-FM Austin, TX.”
Whenever we are in the Advent season, I think of that Station identification, primarily because Advent is all about that expectant waiting for Christmas – the big day. The season we are in -Advent - is about waiting for the birth of the Christ child, but it is also about waiting expectantly for his return. I used to not like Advent much at all, which was because I was not very good at waiting. Life has taught me the importance and value of waiting, and now Advent is one of my favorite seasons.
Our reading from 2 Peter today addresses this problem of waiting. It was written sometime around 80 – 90 CE. That date is important, seeing that it was written some 50-60 after the date of Christ’s death and resurrection. At that time, Christians believed Christ’s return was imminent. Some of them had been waiting 50-60 years for it. Have you ever waited that long for something?
The scholarly term for this long period of waiting is “delayed Parousia.” That is a fancy way of saying “someone who is running extremely late to the party.” It appears that Christians living during the first few decades after Jesus died expected that they would see him return during their lifetime. This, as we know, did not happen. They spend many years “looking busy” waiting for Christ to return.
Perhaps people were beginning to lose faith, since his return seemed nowhere on the horizon. These circumstances might help to explain why the author of this letter quoted Psalm 90, verse 4, which says “a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night.”
In other words, 2 Peter does not answer the question of “how long do we need to look busy until Jesus returns?” It does remind us, more importantly, that to God a thousand years are like a day. God’s time is not like ours.
The purpose of Advent, and of God’s timing, is not for us to try and force our own solutions. They never work, anyway. Instead, the purpose of Advent, and God’s timing, is to lay our entire lives at God’s feet, and to remember that we are not in control of our time, we don’t get to call the shots, we don’t get to tell God when to show up. Instead, Advent teaches us humility. We learn to wait. We learn to trust. God will show up. God will appear when God is ready to do so. AMEN.