"THE PATIENCE OF THE LORD"
Second Sunday in Advent
December 10, 2017
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9 (ESV)
It's always been interesting to me to observe how the same thing can be looked at in two or more entirely different ways, depending on the perspective of the person who is looking at it. A number of years ago I saw one of those humorous wall plaques that stated this principle so bluntly that even I could relate to it. It said: "How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on." It seems that, when we are anxiously waiting for something, it takes forever for that thing to arrive, but then when it does finally come it is gone almost immediately. Christmas is certainly that way for children. They can't wait until the big day comes, but, when it finally does come, it never seems to last long enough. As we get older, however, our perspective on this changes. The time between now and Christmas seems to pass more rapidly when there are so many things that we need to get done before Christmas comes and not enough time to get them done.
In the passage before us this morning the apostle Peter points out to us that a person's perception of how long it is taking for the Lord to return in judgment is also affected by that person's perspective. The cynic thinks that it's taking way too long and he uses that to argue that Jesus is never coming back and therefore that the Christian faith is nothing but nonsense. The Christian, as you might suspect, has an altogether different perspective on this. Believers see the Lord's delay as a blessing--as an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel far and wide, so that the Holy Spirit might work through that Gospel to bring more lost souls into the kingdom of God, thereby making them ready for the day of judgment. This morning I'd like us to explore this a little more on the basis of this text from Second Peter, contrasting the way we humans think and the way God thinks, particularly in regard to final coming of Christ.
No matter how faithful we may be, the way we think is always self-centered to a certain extent. It's a part of our fallen nature and we cannot escape it. That's always been our problem and it always will be our problem as long as we are sinners living in this world of sin. We see everything only from our own perspective. We're not really capable of seeing things in a way that does not have us and our own concerns at the very center. We can joke about it, as I heard one comedian do when he observed: "Ever notice that when you're driving down the road everyone driving slower than you is a nuisance and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac?", but I'm not all that sure that we realize how true it is. I am convinced that a great deal of the conflict that we see in our world today is the result of differing individuals or parties not being able (or willing) to see the other's perspective.
Strange as it may sound, this way of thinking has an impact even on the way we look at the Lord's return in judgment. The reason why we think that the Lord is slow in coming is because we are self-centered. We are only thinking about the wonderful things that await us when this world of sin and death passes away and God's kingdom of glory becomes a reality for us. Like children waiting for Christmas, we are waiting for something good and we don't want to wait any longer than we absolutely have to. We don't see anything else but what we want, so we begin to ask (or at least to wonder): If my Lord truly loves me, why wouldn't He want to give me all the wonderful things that He has in store for me right now? --the sooner, the better! If Jesus is true to His promise, why hasn't He come back yet? After all, it's been two thousand years! It is inconceivable to us that there could be any concerns other than our own that the Lord might want to consider as He determines these things.
The Lord, however, thinks in an entirely different way than we do--and it's a good thing that He does! He looks beyond His own interests. His delay in coming is not because of anything lacking in Him; it is because of His love for the lost and His concern for the spiritual needs and the eternal welfare of those for whom He suffered and died. For one thing, His delay in coming shows how patient He is with the lost. Despite their constant ridicule of Him and their rejection of His redeeming grace, the text before us describes His will as "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." The Savior who God sent lived and suffered and died not just for the saved, but for all sinners, and it is His heartfelt desire that everyone for whom He did it should come to know it, to believe it, to trust in it, and to receive its benefits.
The Lord's delay in returning to the earth in judgment is also indicative of His patience with us who have received the Good News of His grace in faith. He has left us with an enormous mission to accomplish, and we seem to be taking our "sweet old time" in accomplishing it. After He completed the redemption of sinners by His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death, and after He proclaimed it in His resurrection from the dead, the Lord Jesus commissioned His disciples (and us after them) to "go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15) or, more specifically, to "go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that [He has] commanded [us]" (Matthew 28:19, 20). In delaying His return the Lord is giving us more time to complete the task that He has placed before us. He who loves sinners so much that He laid down His very life for us all is giving us more opportunity to love others as He has loved us by sharing His Gospel with them.
The time that has elapsed and will continue to elapse between the Savior's first coming in Bethlehem so many centuries ago and His final coming in glory at the end of time can be looked at in two different ways. We can see it as an unpleasant burden that we have to endure as we await deliverance from this miserable existence with all of its pain and sorrow, or we can see it as a golden opportunity for us to share the love of Jesus with those for whom He died but who are not aware of it. It's all a matter of our perspective, which will also affect what we do with this period of waiting. We can complain about it or we can make use of it. The Lord whose first coming we are about to celebrate and whose final coming we long for inspires us and strengthens us as He comes to us in the meantime through His means of grace, so that we might busy ourselves during these days with the glorious mission of proclaiming His redeeming love to a lost and hurting world. His promise is that His Holy Spirit, working through these means, will accomplish it in and through us to His glory and for the benefit of all.
Amen.
May the One who once came as an Infant in Bethlehem prepare you for His coming again in glory by His means of grace, through which He comes to you even now. May He equip you to be His witnesses so that you, like the Baptist in the wilderness, may prepare the way of the Lord. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.