Read Isaiah 40: 1-11 here.
Read 2 Peter 3:8-15a here.
The scripture passages from the Lectionary for today, the second Sunday of Advent, were Psalm 85 and Mark 1:1-8. The Psalm, in very brief, speaks about the faithfulness and goodness of God to His people. The Mark passage, again in very brief, speaks about John the Baptist as pointing towards the Messiah – that is, pointing to the fulfillment of God’s promises to His people.
The remaining Lectionary passages are Isaiah 40:1-11 and 2 Peter 3:8-15. And as I read these passages, especially in the context of the Advent season, I would argue that the Isaiah passage speaks to the faithfulness and goodness of God in keeping His promises for redemption for Israel; and the 2 Peter passage speaks about the Day of the Lord, and what it means to wait, as a people of the promise, for that final fulfillment.
So let’s take a really quick look at those two passages.
Isaiah 40:1-11
Unfortunately, we’re not going to look at these passages in depth today. I just want to paint with broad strokes as we contemplate Advent. And as we know, Advent is the season of the year (the beginning of the Christian calendar) in which we are focused on Jesus’ coming – we remember His first coming in His birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, and we look forward to His second coming when He will come in judgement and fulfillment to set all things finally right.
Now both Jesus’ first and second comings are bound up with the work of redemption and restoration that God is completing. The world, as we are well aware, is broken and twisted – far from what God had intended for creation due to the sinfulness of human beings. But God’s purposes to defeat sin and death are realized through His son Jesus Christ.
This work is completed on the cross – through Jesus’ death, His sacrifice for us – which is part of His first coming. However, as we also know, we live in the in-between time. We are assured of our salvation (if we put our faith in Jesus), but we still wait for the fulfillment.
And in this respect, I can truly empathize with the Israelites to whom the prophet Isaiah was speaking. As we know, the people of Israel understood themselves to be the chosen people of God. They believed (rightly) that they were blessed to be a blessing and that the whole of creation would be redeemed (whatever that meant in their imaginations) through them. And their history told of their being chosen in and through Abraham, their being delivered into and then out of Egypt, their possessing and inhabiting the promised land, their prosperity under king David. But here, in the time of Isaiah, they found themselves dispossessed. Their land of promise had been taken from them; their inheritance had been removed; their very identity was in doubt. Where was the promise, they would ask themselves. What about the covenant? Where was their God?
And to this, Isaiah says, “Comfort, comfort my people…her hard service has been completed, her sin has been paid for.” Take comfort, Israel (or speak comfort to Israel) because the end of suffering is in sight. And more to the point, the prophet tells us that this is so, the promise will be fulfilled, because God is coming.
3 A voice of one calling:
Isaiah 40: 3-5
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Now at this point, I want to consider the second of our Advent passages today, from 2 Peter 3:8-15a. The passage reads:
8 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. 9 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.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation…
2 Peter 3: 8-15a
Focussing for now on the first part of the passage, it says:
8 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. 9 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.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
2 Peter 3: 8-10
Again, we’re not going to look at this passage in depth. But at first glance, these verses also talk about the anticipation and expectation of the coming of the Lord. But the context in which Peter sets these words (that is, the verses that immediately precede it) has to do with “scoffers” (as the NIV puts it) who argue that since God hasn’t come yet, He is unlikely to come. Therefore, the threat of judgement is disregarded and these scoffers will continue to live as they have, disregarding the holiness of God.
And it is to this that Peter says that God is not slow, he is patient. But make no mistake; the day of the Lord is indeed coming; God is returning soon.
So at this point, it’s worth remembering what Chris has told us so often – that in the minds of the Israelites the Day of the Lord is not some cozy, warm, fuzzy, feel-good notion. Rather, as we read in 2 Peter, the notion of the Day of the Lord includes the heavens disappearing with a roar, the elements being destroyed by fire, the earth and everything done in it being laid bare. For the vast majority of us, this hardly sounds like something we would be looking forward to.
But the basic point is, in the presence of a holy God, how can any of us stand? In the presence of a holy God, sin will be and must be destroyed. And so, what sin there is inside each of us will be and must also be destroyed.
For some people, that is a terrifying prospect. And it should be. Without the blood of Jesus to cover us, without the death of Jesus to give us life, the wrath of God certainly will not pass over us.
But though human beings cannot stand by our own strength, according to our own righteousness, God our God will be forever faithful.
Returning to our passage in Isaiah, we read:
6 A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”“All people are like grass,
Isaiah 40: 6-8
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
The prophet tells us that the people and their faithfulness wither and fall; they wither and fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Perhaps the prophet is telling us, reminding us, that people are fickle, that we waver and that we fall, especially in the light of a holy God.
But, as the prophet goes on to say:
9 You who bring good news to Zion,
Isaiah 40: 9-11 (Emphasis added)
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.
“Do not be afraid,” declares the prophet. The Lord is coming. The Day of the Lord is coming. But he tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” In other words, we might say, though the Day of the Lord is coming, to those who trust Him, we need not be afraid. Because we put our trust not in our holiness, not in our inherent worthiness, but in the faithfulness and love of our God.
Returning to 2 Peter, we read:
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
2 Peter 3: 11-14
Here, Peter says very much something that we have tried to emphasize – most recently in our study of 1 Corinthians, but also in numerous times and ways throughout the years. And that is, without digging into this idea here and now, that as we live in the in-between time, though we are already-but-not-yet, we are called to live into the promise of God’s salvation. We seek to live holy and godly lives as we look forward to the day of God; in keeping with his promise, we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells.
In light of the reality of the Day of the Lord, in light of the reality that God is coming, in light of the truth that holiness will prevail, live holy and godly lives. Live towards the promise for which you have been saved. Take hold of the eschatological reality even today.
Now we’ve covered a fair bit of territory. Or to put it another way, there’s quite a lot going on in these passages. We might summarize some of our thoughts as follows (again, keeping in mind that we are trying to focus on the Advent season, and that these are therefore our Advent thoughts about these passages, rather than “this is what the passages are saying”).
- The world is not as it should be
- Our lives are not as we hoped they would be
- But God is coming
- The Day of the Lord is coming
- But do not be afraid
- Because God’s judgement is comfort for those who trust Him
It’s hard for us to think of judgement as a comfort. This is probably to be expected because we each know precisely how much we can be judged. That is, we know to what extent we each fall short of the mark. So we think that judgement is a bad thing, a scary thing. And indeed, there’s a sense in which it is. There is a legitimate sense in which the Day of the Lord is cause for fear and trembling. And there is a legitimate sense in which there should always be fear and trembling before a holy God.
However, God tells us not to be afraid. God says to His people, “comfort, comfort.” For your hard service has been completed, your sin has been paid for. God tells us that His work of redemption has been completed and is being brought to fruition. We know not exactly when, we don’t know exactly how much longer we will be waiting. But we do know that we are closer today than we were yesterday.
This Advent season, we do not ignore the reality of sin. We do not ignore the difficulty and hardships in our lives. Nor do we turn a blind eye to the suffering and injustice in the world. But we know that we can cry out to a compassionate and loving God who not only hears our cries, but knows and feels the brokenness of this world in a deeper, fuller way than we can imagine. And we can know that God is coming. We can know that Christ has come and that Christ will come again. So we wait. But we wait not in the darkness, not wondering and weary. We wait in hope. And we wait assured in the promises of God.