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•••••••••• 2 Peter 3:8-15a
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A man was wandering in the woods
pondering all the questions of life, the
universe, and his own personal problems.
The man could not find any answers so he
sought help from God.
"God!? God?! Are you there God?!",
he shouted.
God responded,
"What is it my son?"
"I have a few questions, mind if I ask?"
"Go right ahead, my son - ask anything,"
God said.
"God, what is a million years to you?"
God said,
"a million years to me is only a second."
"Hmmm",
he wondered. Then he asked again,
"God, what is a million dollars
worth to you?"
God said,
"A million dollars to me is
only worth a penny."
The man lifted his eyebrows and
proceeded to ask a final question.
"God can I have a penny?"
And God cheerfully said,
"Sure!!.....in a second."
I share that joke with you not only because it's a favorite of mine. This actually picks up on themes from the Epistle for this Sunday.
Peter reminds us that our time and God's time don't match up. This is not unique to Peter. The Gospels and the Epistles speak of two different types of time: Chronos and Kairos. The first is measurable time, such as the start time for this Mass. The second is unmeasurable time. The first is human time. The second is God's time.
When we are dealing with God's time, we often get anxious. There is a certain degree of comfort in earthly time. But God's time makes us anxious. More importantly, God's time makes us inpatient. We try to mask that. We tell people God's time is best. But then we forget our own words and become restless as inpatience takes hold on us.
I will own that for myself. About 7 1/2 years ago I was nearing the end of my chaplain residency and looking for a full-time job as a chaplain. When the last months turned into the last weeks of employment, and I still did not have a job lined up, I began looking for anything that would bring in a paycheck. I was telling everyone that it simply wasn't the right time. I was putting up a facade of patience. But when no one was around, I was wrestling with God and getting impatient. I wondered and even prayed the questions: "How long are you going to make me wait? I've said the right thing." And time kept passing by. I was offered my chaplain job here in Wilkes-Barre a mere 9 days before completing my residency in Reading.
The last 7 years have proven again that God's time was indeed the right time, and that patience paid off. I would not be standing here in your midst had I not received that offer to come to Wilkes-Barre. I would not have met my friend, Father Adam, who introduced me to my wife, Joan. My life would be radically different in ways that I cannot begin to imagine.
You would think that with an experience like this that I don't wrestle any longer with inpatient waiting upon God. I wish that I could say that I don't. There is a reason why it is often said that the most common prayer is this:
"Lord, give me patience,
but give it to me now."
Here we are in Advent; the Second Sunday of Advent. Last week we heard the Gospel reminder that Jesus shall return victorious to bring in the fullness of the Kingdom of God at a time known only to God the Father. We were reminded that wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines, and other forces that we see and feel in our generation and know every generation has faced will be no more when Christ returns and calls us from the earthly kingdom to the heavenly kingdom. And once we realize that this Advent is not for our judgment and condemnation but rather for our very salvation and deliverance, we cannot help but cry out with John, Evangelist and Apostle, who at the end of Revelation cries out:
"Amen! Come, Lord Jesus."
And then with John, and Peter, and Paul, and countless others, we wait. God, who is patience perfected, calls us in these Advent days to wait with patience and faith, to not loose heart, to trust indeed that God's time is always the best time.
By the point in life in which Peter wrote these words that we have heard in today's Epistle, the apostle and his generation had learned to embrace that patience. The apostles and the first generation of Christians believed that they would not see death before Christ returned for the Church. But as time passed by, and more and more of these saints fell asleep in Christ and died, the more Peter and his companions embraced patience and realized that they needed to prepare the faithful to wait. Peter, now an old man, is preparing for his death.
As an old man, the apostle explains for us the patience of God. His explanation gives meat to arguably the most well-known of oft-quoted verse of the Gospel:
"For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life."
John 3:16 [ESV]
Peter reminds us that this really does reveal the heart of God. The Father is patient in the midst of the storms that rage in our midst, waiting for the right time for Christ to return for us and bring the Advent of the Kingdom because it is God's desire that all shall be saved and granted a place in the Eternal Kingdom. That reminder should so transform our hearts that God's desire becomes our own, and we are willing to wait in hope for as long as God is willing to wait.
Is that waiting easy? No! Remember the vision that John shares with us in Revelation. He writes of those the martyrs already in the Eternal Kingdom:
They cried out with a loud voice,
"O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how
long before you will judge and avenge
our blood on those who dwell on the
earth?"
Then they were each given a white robe
and told to rest a little longer, until the
number of their fellow servants and their
brothers should be complete, who were
to be killed as they themselves had been.
Revelation 6:10-11 [ESV]
As they wait for the Lord to act, these martyrs, indeed all the saints and angels, worship God and trust God who gives them what they need to wait with paitence and in faithfulness. In these Advent days, we join the martyrs and all the saints in faithful patience. In God's own good time, God will act, and Christ will return. At the right time the storms that rage around us will cease when Christ appears and speaks peace. And so we wait, and as we wait, we worship God, keeping our focus on Jesus, hopeful not only for our own salvation, but that of the whole world, even that of those who hate us rather than love us, remembering that Jesus gave his life in love for them as well as for us, longing that on the Advent day they too will be brothers and sisters of ours, transformed forever by Christ, who is making all things new.
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Father Timothy Alleman, Rector
The Church of the Holy Cross
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