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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.
I am someone for whom patience is practice, not disposition. While I am certainly more patient than I was as a young(er) adult, my capacity to accept or tolerate delay is often the first thing to go when I am stressed, anxious, or mad. It is just not my way, to stand by when I can often see a clear, direct path forward to whatever destination it is I am seeking.
As you may imagine, this sometimes makes the Christian life difficult. That’s why I resonate with the community to whom Peter writes in his second New Testament epistle. The audience of this letter was very concerned because Jesus had not yet returned as he’d said he would—and it had been 30 years since his death and resurrection!
Of course, we are still waiting for Jesus’ return and it has been many more than 30 years. This waiting is one of the features of the Advent season. During this time, we wait with hopeful expectation not only for the birth of Jesus but also for the re-birth of all things. We wait for Jesus to come again, because we know that in his coming the whole of creation will be made new.
We live in a weary, aching world, a world that seems to ache more by the day. Sometimes the seemingly non-stop crisis of human life drives me to impatience, and I find myself wishing Jesus would hurry up already and get back here to bring God’s kingdom to fruition. This Advent, I am holding the reassurance Peter tells us in his letter: that God is not procrastinating but is instead willing to take God’s time so that as many people who can be made new will be. Maybe, through prayer and worship this season, I will find God’s slow time not to be a burden but a cause for celebration—that God leaves no one behind, that we have time, that new life is coming in ways I cannot begin to imagine.
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