But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise,as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation …
(2 Peter 3:8-15a)
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There’s a story of a young girl who was walking past a church one day not too long before Christmas. Outside the church was a bench, and a very grumpy looking older man was sitting on it, looking as if he was muttering something to himself. The little girl didn’t like seeing anyone looking so grumpy so close to Christmas, so she cautiously approached the man. “Are you OK, sir?” “I’m perfectly fine. I’d just like to be left alone if you don’t mind,” said the grumpy looking man. Well, the little girl was a little bit taken aback by the brusqueness of the man’s response, but she didn’t want to give up. After all, Christmas was coming, and that’s a time of good cheer. So she said to him, “Mister, you know you’re sitting outside a church. Do you know that Jesus came to love you and to save you.” The man got more irritated. “I don’t need a little girl telling me about Jesus,” he said. “I happen to have been an elder of this church for over 40 years. Did you know that?” The little girl gulped. “No, mister, I didn’t know that. But it’s OK. Jesus can forgive you for anything.”
Forgiveness. More to the point - salvation. A few minutes ago the children’s Choir sang “S is for the star that shines so bright.” It could also be “S is for salvation that shines so bright.” It’s what we start to think about at this time of year. Salvation in the present and salvation to come. As one of the Advent hymns in Voices United says, “Tomorrow Christ is coming, as yesterday he came.” The “tomorrow” being referred to isn’t December 25 - it’s the end of time, when salvation covers the earth, and the “yesterday” isn’t last December 25 - it’s the actual birth of Jesus, when grace and salvation appeared in Bethlehem and lived among us for a little while, just giving us a glimpse of what God’s perfect Kingdom will be like, all contained in that one life. What you see in the life of Jesus is what the Kingdom of God will look like. No outsiders - everyone being welcomed in. If you are excluded, it’s only because you choose to exclude yourself, but thanks to Jesus the doors to that Kingdom are wide open. That’s salvation. But salvation is a tough concept for a lot of people. I think the word has acquired some baggage over the years with the way it’s been both used and abused. It means being lifted out of the things that trap us and hold us in bondage; being freed from the things that prevent us from truly seeing and experiencing God in our midst. That’s salvation. But it’s a difficult concept to grasp.
Paul says in Philippians 2:12 that we’re to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” I’ve always been intrigued by that. Why fear and trembling? Is it because we don’t trust God? Maybe, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s because we’re all too aware of what you might call the baggage - the baggage we’re very conscious of in our own lives - the sins if you will that we need to be saved from - and many people just have a natural reluctance to believe that God could really save them or forgive them from things in their past. I’ve known many people (some on their deathbeds) who are very faithful but who are also still fearful - tormented by their past - and who can’t quite believe that God has forgiven them. Good news is sometimes tough to believe (the old “it’s too good to be true” notion) and sometimes we can’t grasp it. I know others who are in such despair about the state of the world (war, violence, potential environmental catastrophe, etc., etc.) that they can’t see any way out and they just live waiting for the end and planning to save themselves - like the so-called “preppers” you sometimes hear about who stockpile weapons and enough food to see themselves through years and to defend themselves against the pathetic folk who’ll try to take what they’ve got. Neither are showing trust in God. They’re either doubting God’s ability to save them, or they believe they have to save themselves. At best, they’re working out their salvation with fear and trembling. And I expect that there were variations of both types of people in Jesus’ day. That’s probably one reason that our passage today said that, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.” People who start to doubt God’s ability to do anything about the sin that’s so obviously present in the world (either within us or around us) are forgetting that God’s promises are certain. That’s why, instead of being slow, Jesus says that God is being “... patient ... not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Perhaps that’s what Advent and Christmas are all about. They’re reminders to us. Advent reminds us that God has a plan to bring everything back to the way it should be, and the brief appearance of Jesus was to give us hope by giving us a vision (shown through his life) of how God wants us to live.
The wording of this passage sounds ominous, foreboding and even frightening, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. Perhaps everything will be destroyed by fire. Actually, even science tells us that will happen (although science tells us that day is about 5 billion years away, while Scripture tends to leave the date open!) but what is fire really? It’s a means of purification - it’s how things are refined and cleansed of their impurities and made to be the way they should be. We think of it as a frightening thing, but it’s actually a good image to speak about the fulfilment of God’s plan, of which we got a glimpse in the life of Jesus - a plan that’s the ultimate fulfilment of God’s desire for the salvation of the world. We’re simply called to be the bearers of good news - that for all its problems and faults, and as frightening as it may sometimes seem - God loves this world he created and God loves we who live in it, and God will save both it and us. In a hymn written in 1882, Priscilla Owens wrote:
We have heard the joyful sound:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Spread the tidings all around:
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
Bear the news to every land,
Climb the mountains, cross the waves;
Onward! ’tis our Lord’s command;
Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
That really is good news!
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