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. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
– 2 Peter 3:9-13
When the snow starts to fall, it almost seems as if life slows down a little bit. It takes more time to drive places, put on multiple layers of warm clothes, and get out of bed to face the chilly morning air. Amidst holiday busyness, the season of Advent seems to embody patience.
2 Peter 3 reminds us that the Lord is patient and with Him ‘one day is like a thousand years’ (2 Peter 3:8) and the Lord ‘is patient with you’(v. 9).
Advent is a season of waiting.
We wait to celebrate the birth of Jesus and we also wait in longing for the day in which justice and mercy flow and all things are made right with God. The Lord is patient in His waiting and is ‘not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance’ (v. 9).
Our lives are held within the whole story of God and His work in creation. God promises to His people that all will be made new and that the old will be destroyed so that we can live fully with God in the new.
As Christians we trust in God’s promise and wait in anticipation and celebration of the birth of Jesus who gives us the sure and certain hope of full life with God as we wait ‘for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home’(v.13).
In our Advent waiting, God invites us to imagine how beautiful the world will be when all is made new through Jesus Christ.
In this same passage we are reminded that ‘the Lord is not slow about his promise’ (v. 9) and He desires for all of creation to repent and believe in God through Christ. We have hope in the future and the promise of full life with God yet we know that when the new comes, the old will be destroyed.
Much like when we believe in, confess, and cling to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the new has come within us and the old is no more. In the waiting for God to make all things new, we are called to lead ‘lives of holiness and godliness’ (v. 11) while we imagine how beautiful the world will be when all is made new.
As Christians, we do not put our full hope in the physical world that God created, but we put our hope in the promise of God that one day, through Jesus, we will be made right with God and receive life in its fullness.
As we patiently wait in anticipation and celebration of Jesus’ birth now in Advent, God is patiently waiting with us. And as the snow slowly falls from the sky and eventually lands on the ground, God’s work is present in the world and all things will inevitably be made new in Him through Christ.
In Advent we long for full life with God as we wait ‘for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home’(v.13).
Imagine how beautiful the world will be when all is made new through the finished work of Christ.
Danny Carpenter, Advent 2022
Image: Jan Propst
