Song of Solomon 8: 5-7 2 Peter 3: 8-13
God’s timeline is very different from ours. This can make us impatient of God’s seemingly diffident response.
Here we are busily saving souls while God seems to take an eternal moment or so to bring all of his promises to fruition.
There’s a lesson in this for those of us who show excessive zeal in the matter of sin and repentance because there’s hope for us all.
It’s true that this morning’s second lesson from St Peter’s Second Epistle isn’t ruling out a sudden conclusion to all of God’s plans and purposes for us and that Advent theme of being prepared is an important counter to any possibility of the person of faith becoming totally lax in their preparation for the Kingdom but a God who waits to be gracious to us and who shows extraordinary forbearance towards sinners is the God whom we meet in Jesus Christ and that God is a much more powerful and persuasive personality than the God of fire and brimstone which otherwise characterises the teaching of the Church down the centuries.
It’s fair to say that people will turn to Christ more urgently when they are faced with their mortality – perhaps when they struggle to make ends meet, when they are sick or dying, in places of conflict, or in hospital. It’s also fair to say that most people in our modern world don’t need promises of future bliss to enjoy a relatively agreeable mode of existence here and now.
And these considerations emphasise the elasticity of God’s timeline.
God is indeed the source of infinite resolve right now but he’s prepared to wait for as long as it takes for his people to turn to him for his mercy and protection.
And what that might mean for the Church in its righteous desire to share the good news about God and his Christ with as many people as possible is that scare stories about God’s anger and wrath are inevitably counterproductive – either because people aren’t attracted to such a bad advertisement for God or because it’s not good to kick a man when he’s down.
One of the vital roles of the Church is, as Rowan Williams once put it, to keep the rumour of God alive so that, at a time when time is right, people will walk through an open door into the presence of God who will welcome them with open arms and take them to himself.
And we keep the rumour of God alive not just by singing hymns and feeling warm and comfortable inside but by actively proclaiming the love of God and the power of God by telling the story about Jesus Christ as many times as it takes. The old, old story. The greatest story ever told. The greatest drama that ever staggered the imagination of man.
And, as we do so, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests: Fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.