"Patience: Ours and God’s"
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Posted December 23, 2000
The season of Advent for the Christian Church has two foci. The first, and most obvious, is the expectation of the birth of the baby Jesus. The second meaning centers upon the expected return of Jesus......the second coming. Both emphases involve waiting and preparing.
The Old Testament is replete with stories about waiting. One could argue that the overall theme of God’s chosen people, Israel, is “waiting.”
We encounter “waiting” immediately in the story of Abraham. Abraham was seventy five years old when Yahweh first visited him to tell him he would be the father of a great nation. It was, though, twenty four years later when Yahweh revealed through visiting angels that Sarah would have their child, Isaac.
When famine occurred in Canaan, Jacob sent his sons into Egypt to see if they could procure food. Jacob’s “wait” was anxious....a wait that ultimately led to his reunion with Joseph.
It was the descendants of Jacob who became slaves in Egypt, and spent four hundred years waiting for their freedom. And, when they did cross the Red Sea, they wandered another forty years in the desert before they could enter the promised land.
Finally, after the Assyrians had captured the northern kingdom, the Babylonians destroyed the southern kingdom. In each case, Israelites were taken captive. About half the population of the southern kingdom was exiled into Babylon where they waited for seventy years before returning.
Waiting is a prominent theme of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the theme reappears in the expected return of Christ.
Our test focuses on the frustration of the early church while they wait for the return of Christ. The Second Coming was a vital part of the faith of early Christians. Most of them believed Jesus would return soon after the resurrection. Experts believe 2 Peter was authored about sixty to seventy years after the resurrection. It is clear that Christians were frustrated that Christ had not returned. They were beginning to question whether the expectation was legitimate.
The author of 2 Peter attempts to redefine the world view of the early church. He argues, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” (2 Peter 3: 8 NRSV) Clearly, we cannot understand God’s promise within the context of human time. God is time-less. Time is not a restriction to God. In fact, what God is doing, the author submits, could be considered our salvation. God’s patience comes out of God’s desire that all may come to repentance.
The day of the Lord will come. But the most important question for us is not “when.” The most important question is, “what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting ...... “ (2 Peter 3: 11f NRSV) The new heaven and new earth will come to pass. Will we be ready?
Patience is a difficult human virtue to achieve. Seeing things from God’s perspective is not easy. Waiting is not natural for most of us, especially if we are suffering. In the midst of suffering, we are more likely to abandon God, rather than look for signs of hope.
Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 2,714 days. On one occasion, Stockdale was handcuffed and chained to a post in the sun-baked courtyard of the prison camp. His legs were placed in heavy chains. The Viet Cong wanted the other American POWs to witness what happens to someone who is disobedient. He was beaten repeatedly. For three days and nights he was not allowed to sleep, nor eat, nor drink.
The one thing that kept Stockdale going was the sound of snapping towels. His fellow prisoners would snap towels, not randomly, but in Morse Code. The message.....G-B-U-J-S.....”God bless you, Jim Stockdale!” The towels gave Stockdale the encouragement he needed to endure his pain.
For many of us, “waiting” for the second coming of Christ has lost its meaning. It is a doctrine that finds very little credence today. If the early Christians, only sixty or seventy years away from the resurrection were confused, today’s Christians, two thousand years away from the resurrection, have forgotten the promise.
Our encounters with the doctrine of second coming make us leery. People often predict the end of the world, and propose that Christ will appear on a certain day. When those dates pass uneventfully, we add another “lunatic” to our list. Even a street preacher carried a sign board that read, “The end of the world is not coming.....you must suffer along and learn to cope.” Most of us do not take the doctrine of Christ’s return seriously.
If we could look at it from God’s perspective, we would see that God is not slow with promises. God’s time is not our time. God is patient, and God’s patience is our salvation.
The critical question raised by our text is an ethical one. How should we behave as we prepare for Christ’s return? 2 Peter suggests that we live lives of holiness and godliness. As we do, the day of redemption will hasten. Our task is to be prepared so that when Christ does return, we shall be found at peace.
William and Mary College nearly died during the Civil War. The college filed for bankruptcy. Students quit coming. The faculty left. Only one man kept the hopes and dreams of the college alive.
For seven years around the Civil War, the college’s president, a man named Ewell, would enter the bell tower on campus every morning. He rang the bell as if to call people to class, as he had done so many years before. People thought him to be crazy, much like we consider those who predict the end of the world. But, his hope was fulfilled. The money began to come in. Students and faculty returned. Today, William and Mary exists as the second oldest institution of higher education in the United States. In the face of disaster, President Ewell maintained hope.
There is an Anglican church in the town of Leicestershire, England. It is not unusual to find an Anglican church in England. But this church as a unique history.
When Oliver Cromwell came to power in England, this militant Puritan attempted to reform the Church of England of its Catholic practices. He destroyed many church structures, smashing stained glass windows, and demolishing altars.
In the midst of this chaos, a man named Robert Shirley built the Anglican church at Leicestershire in the old gothic style. It was an act of defiance. Cromwell summoned Shirley to London, arrested him and put him in the Tower where he died.
On the front door of the church in Leicestershire today is a plaque which reads:
In the year 1653 when all things sacred throughout the nation were either demolished or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, baronet, founded this church, whose singular praise it is to have done the best things in the worst time, and hoped for them in the most calamitous.
Even in the face of despair, hope can live. It is this kind of hope, and living lives of godliness and holiness, toward which we should strive as we wait for God’s redemption.
Isaiah 65:17 speaks of the coming of the new heaven and the new earth. Revelation 21:4 reiterates the promise. The former things will pass away. The faithful will be vindicated.
In one of Bill Waterson’s cartoon series Calvin and Hobbes... Calvin enters the living room one morning dressed in a large space helmet, a long cape, a flash-light in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. “What’s up today?” asks his mother. “Nothing so far,” Calvin answers. “So far??” she questions. “Well, you never know,” replies Calvin. “Something could happen today.” As Calvin leaves, the final caption shows his mother thinking, “I need a suit like that!!!”
Because patience is so difficult for us, hope is also illusive. 2 Peter reminds us that God has not forgotten God’s promises. We simply must understand that God is not restricted to our time. In fact, God’s patience is an act of grace.........God’s patience is our salvation!
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