The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
December 8, 2002 

Antici…pation
2 Peter 3:8-18 

This is a sermon about antici [significant pause] pation. Anticipation. Watching. Waiting. 

Advent is the name of these four weeks leading up to Christmas. Advent, the word is from the Latin adventus for “coming.” In Advent, we await the annual remembrance of Jesus’ birth, but we also await his second coming in glory. Yet Advent as a season is a time for anticipating.  

You see some of that anticipation here in the church. The Advent wreath here by the lectern is a symbol of waiting. The Advent wreath, unlike candelabra is not lit all at once. We don’t light the four candles around the ring and the central candle all through Advent. Instead, the light builds week by week. You see time passing as the candles burn down. Already, you can see how the candle for the first week of Advent has burned much lower than the newly lit one for this second week. You can see the other two candles remaining unlit and the central Christ candle patiently awaits Christmas Eve.  

In the Episcopal Church, we follow the centuries old tradition of saving Christmas carols for Christmas season. We will sing them with gusto come Christmas Eve and through the Twelve Days of Christmas, but for now we sing songs appropriate to a season of waiting and watching. 

Our Advent readings are also ones of anticipation. Instead of reading of Jesus this week in the Gospels, we hear John the Baptist, the Saint of Advent, out in the desert preparing the way for Jesus’ ministry. The readings this season don’t rush toward Christmas, but build up to the big event more slowly.  

So while Jesus’ coming is what Advent is all about, it is a time for antici [significant pause] pation. 

This doesn’t come naturally to me. I am an impatient person. My prayer has long been, “Lord give me patience right now!” In time, I have found God answering that prayer and I’ve been able to center myself a bit more. When, I find myself in a situation I can’t hurry along, I have found it easier over time to wait patiently. I’m getting better. But still, patience is something with which I am still struggling. 

And how long do we have to wait anyway? Well, for Christmas, we have just 17 days to go. I didn’t mean to raise anyone’s shopping anxieties with that statement, but we do know when Christmas will be here. But what about the other Advent, Jesus’ Second Coming? No one knows the hour or day for that. 

But the reading from Second Peter does give us a different way of looking at the problem. Peter is careful to tell us not to overlook one fact, which is itself a paraphrase of Psalm 90, verse 4. Peter writes, “Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”

As I have noted before, the Bible makes it clear that God has a different view of time than we do. It is good that Jesus did not return any sooner or we would have all missed the boat completely, for we might not have even been born. 

Peter goes on to tell us that “The Lord is not slow about his promise as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” So God is not slow to act, but patient. Peter finishes by telling us that we should take this extra time given us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

Now lets stop and be honest for a minute. Most of us do not care when Jesus will come again in glory. We are not anxiously watching the skies for his return anyway. If Jesus comes back soon, fine. If not, fine. That’s not what really keeps us up at night.  

If we are impatient, it is not over Jesus’ Second Coming, but over whether he will come into some situation in our lives right here and right now. Forget the trumpet blast. Forget descending in the clouds. Just come answer my prayer request before time runs out on the problems I am having. 

This is where watching and waiting really hit home. It sounds something like, “God I’ve said my prayers and told you how and when I need you to act, so come through for me.” You want that boy in second period class to notice you. Maybe you want to get better grades so your parents will get off your back. You might not be sure you can hold your marriage through the day, much less this coming week. You might wonder if God’s healing touch will come before the disease has spread too far for turning back. You may ask whether you’ll find another job before the bills overtake you.  

The problems are real and this is no time for God to decide that a thousand years are like one day. You need an answer in 24 earth hours, not on some eternal time scale in which God moves only slightly slower than a glacier. To this Peter says, “God is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness.”  

You may have what you consider slow, but that’s your time frame, not God’s. You have already calculated a convenient time frame for God to act. Or perhaps, you have been more generous and developed a reasonable response time for God. No matter what, if we develop a means for God to act and a time frame in which it should happen, we are bound to be disappointed.  

Once disappointed in God, it is easy to get lax about praying, reading the Bible, attending church. Without thinking about it, we can go from being disappointed that God does not behave as we think God should to dropping out on God. Instead of waiting on the Lord, we can drop into despair and leave God by the wayside. 

If you have set God a deadline, remember that not only are a thousand years like a day to God, but a day is like a thousand years. God can make amazing changes occur in short order. The thing to do is trust in God’s promises and put the timing in God’s hands. 

The Bible warns us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways. Instead God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and God’s ways are higher than our ways.  

Jesus taught us to pray like this when he said we are to pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Advent is certainly the time for praying for God’s kingdom to come, but it is also a time for praying that God’s will be done on earth in us, through us, and, probably at times, in spite of us as God’s will is done in heaven. The best we can pray for is for God’s will to be done in God’s time and for God to give us the patience to see it through with God in the meantime. 

It’s not yet time to light all the candles in our Advent wreath. It’s not yet time to sing Christmas carols. It might not yet be time for God to act on your prayers. But it is time to turn things over to God and trust that he will be faithful to act.  

This season of Advent is a time apart for waiting, watching, and antici [pause significantly] pation. We look forward to the celebration of Jesus’ birth. We look forward to Jesus’ Second Coming in Glory. We look forward to this sermon finally being over. And mostly we look forward to Jesus’ coming more fully into our lives in times of need.  

In this time of waiting, remember that God is not slow as some think of slowness. God is not ignoring you or your needs when you think God is slow to act. God is patient with you and me. I thank the Lord that he is. God will act to bring about his will on earth. In the meantime, we wait, we watch, and we antici…. 

Amen.