Grace to you and peace from our loving God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The second lesson for today is a strange bit of scripture. It has clear Advent themes, but it seems internally contradictory.

First the evangelist tells us that time is meaningless to God—that a single day is like a thousand years. Then we read that the "Lord is not slow about his promise..." If time is meaningless to God, what is not slow for God could seem like forever to us. It just doesn't make sense to me—except in the context of what comes next.

"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."

So, God isn't really slow. It's merely that God is giving us plenty of opportunity to come to faith in Jesus—not wanting us to perish. The delay isn't about being slow; it's about being patient.

But there's more in this letter's play with the nature of time. The next line says:

"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."

Now, most folks who read this get caught up in all those science-fiction thriller, apocalyptic details about noise and fire and revelation. But, as you might guess, those details have little to do with the point. Peter is calling us to urgency. God is being patient, and yet will not delay. Patience for God. Urgency for us.

The point gets reinforced later in the text:

"Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation."

The patience of God again! "Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation." Our job is watchful, faithful, expectant waiting, striving for the peace and purity that comes with a right relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God's job is patience, which is to be regarded as salvation. For without it—without the time—that we see as delay and God sees as patience—we would not have the opportunity to come to know and to share the love of Jesus.

Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. It's a phrase that sums up the need for and the theme of the Advent season. The need is ours; and in Advent we are called to celebrate that our salvation is at hand. The theme is about both patience and urgency; we look anxiously and urgently for the One who is to come. We urgently prepare ourselves for his coming, and God's patience in fulfilling the birth of Jesus and the second coming of Christ provides the opportunity. God wants every human being to embrace Advent's offer of repentance and salvation.

Here's a cute story about the ways that time is different for God and for us.

A little boy asks God: "What is a million years like to you?"

God responds in a manner to which Jimmy can relate. "A million years to me, Jimmy, is like a minute."

"Oh," says Jimmy. "Well, then, what's a million dollars like to you?"

"A million dollars to me, Jimmy, is like a penny."

"Wow!" replies Jimmy, getting an idea. "You're so generous... can I have one of your pennies?"

God responds, "Sure thing, Jimmy!...Just a minute."

Jimmy might be looking at a long wait. And that wait will take something we humans have trouble learning—patience.

Let me turn now to a story that deals with this more central topic of patience.

Herb Milton stepped into the whirlpool at the YMCA where several of his friends were already soaking in the hot, steamy water and conversing, as men do, about the deep, ultimate existential concerns of mankind—like the point spread on the coming Monday night football game, the ridiculously high salaries of professional baseball players (they were about evenly divided on that one), and the price of American cars compared to German and Japanese models, putting aside the growing problem of whether they could afford them.

The conversation flowed from one topic to another-family matters, how difficult it is to raise kids today, high taxes, national politics, local gossip, the differences between men and women—until finally they got to talking about human nature. That was when the conversation became heated. One man expressed very loudly, and in language he wouldn't have used in church, that most people he knew only looked out for themselves. "When it comes right down to it," he said, "we're all basically selfish. Take care of number one and to heck with everyone else."

That's when Herb pulled himself up out of the water to cool off, and said in a quiet voice, "I don't agree with you, and I'll tell you why. I saw something recently that I have not been able to get out of my mind. As you all know, I'm a jogger. Every afternoon, when I get off work at the plant, I jog about a mile and a half to the convenience store on the corner to pick up my daily paper, and then I turn around and jog home.

"One day when I went into the store, the man behind the counter who saves my paper for me, and whom I've known for years, was standing at the window with tears in his eyes, staring out at the bus stop across the street. He turned to me after a bit and said, 'Herb, do you see that bench over there?'

"I nodded and he went on. 'There's an old woman who comes there every day around this time. She sits there for about an hour, knitting and waiting. Buses come and go, but she never boards one and she never meets anyone who is getting off. She just knits and waits. I took a cup of coffee over to her one day and sat with her for a while. She told me that her son is in the Navy. She last saw him two years ago when he left town on one of the buses right out there. He's married now, and he and his wife have a baby daughter.

'The woman has never met her daughter-in-law or seen her grandchild, and they're the only family she has. She told me, "It helps to come here and wait. I pray for them, knit little things for the baby, and I imagine them in their tiny apartment on the base. They're saving money to come home on the bus next Christmas. I can't wait to see them."'

"My friend behind the counter took a deep breath and then he said, 'I looked out there just now, and there they were getting off the bus. You should have seen the look on her face when they fell into her arms, and when she laid eyes on her little granddaughter for the first time. It was the nearest thing to pure joy that I ever hope to see. I'll never forget that look for as long as I live.'"

Herb sat down in the hot water again and paused for a moment before he said, "When I went back the next day my friend was in his usual place behind the counter. Before he could say anything, or even hand me my paper, I looked him in the eye and I said to him, 'You sent her son the money for the bus tickets, didn't you?' He looked at me with eyes full of love and a smile that was the nearest thing to complete joy that I have ever seen, and said, 'Yes, I sent him the money,'"

"I'll never forget that look for as long as I live."

It was quiet in the whirlpool for a long time after that. No one wanted to be the first to speak. (John Sumwalt, Patient Waiting, CSS Publishing Company)

Putting aside the moving generosity portrayed in this story, I want to ask: Could the patience of that woman, sitting and knitting every day, be the kind of patience that God is showing us in this season? Could it be that God is waiting with divine patience each and every day for us to come home?

That kind of patience, active in anticipation, productive in preparing, is also our charge from Peter today:

"Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation."

May the day that we now wait for with patience and hope yield for us and for God the pure joy that comes from an incarnational embrace.

Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.