Second Sunday in Advent: Epistle, 2 Peter 3:8-14                   

2 Peter 3:8-14

Looking into the life of the church from the outside, if such a thing is done, would reveal that for many American congregations life goes as it does at any time of the year. But during the Season of Advent, historic churches who still hold to a church calendar enter the season looking at two separate events. And that isn’t always understood even by those in those churches. Yes Advent points to remembering all the miraculous events surrounding the coming of the God-man into the world by human birth. The first time. But Advent also grants a season of forward looking. The Christian lives in the gap between the first coming of the Savior and His coming again. First coming in humility. Second coming in flaming glory.

The epistle reading for the week lets us in on the fact that all we see and know in our midst will be done away with at the future coming of Jesus for His saints. Peter tells us that all will be destroyed, not by water as during an earlier judgment, but by fire. And it is easy to read into that event a great ending. And in part it is. But the full reality points not to an end. It is rather the birth of a new and grander age. One that will never end because what brings an end to the first age will not be present in the age to come. Sin, defeated on the Cross of Jesus, will have been put away in the glorious return for which God’s people hope.

No, the coming advent of our God in Christ signals not the final day, but a stunning opening of a new and greater reality. Behold,  a new day is about to dawn, upon which the sun will never set. Blessed Advent!