A line caught my attention while I was reading the Gospel last week. So much so, that I was tempted to comment on it, but on principle I don’t go off manuscript because there’s no telling where I might end up. So instead it’s been rattling around in my brain as I prepared for the sermon this week. The line was Mark 13, verses 30 and 31, where Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” I was caught as I was reading by the contradiction in that statement. Jesus said this generation, meaning, one would assume, the one that was alive two thousand years ago, would not pass away until the things Jesus had spoken of would take place. But in the same breath he said that heaven and the earth itself would pass away, but his words would not. These are strange words two thousand years later, but imagine how they must have sounded to the people hearing them for the first time. Especially after the crucifixion, after what had felt like the sun darkening and the powers of heaven being shaken. They were looking for Jesus to come again, right then, immediately.
But then Jesus didn’t come again; at least not in the way they were hoping. Things kind of went on as they always had, and as more and more time passed, the urgency of waiting for Christ’s return lessened. The “stay awake” that Jesus urged in Mark got harder as the time after Christ’s presence on earth got longer, the memories more distant.
That distance, that sense that the things Christ promised about his return were so far away as to be unreal, or at least unremarkable, is the problem the writer is addressing in the second reading this morning. This letter was written a ways after the crucifixion, some scholars date it to even a hundred years after. “The generation” that Jesus had spoken to had more or less “passed away” by that point, and the new generation of Christ followers didn’t feel the same urgency that their forefathers had. Maybe even doubted that Christ would return. So the writer of second Peter assures them they are not waiting for nothing. “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved,” the letter reads, “that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” The writer highlights that same contradiction Jesus spoke of in Mark, that God’s sense of time is not the same as our sense of time. That a “generation,” even “a thousand years” looks very different to the one who formed the cosmos. But, the writer of Peter goes on, it’s not that God has just lost track of time. Like Jesus said, “this generation” and then ten, twenty, a hundred years went by and suddenly God was like, “my gosh, where did the time go?!” No, the writer of Peter said, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” God is not slow, but patient. God is waiting, working, biding God’s time until everyone has been drawn up into God’s cosmic embrace, until all the world has been brought to salvation.
Well, a hundred years is one thing, but here we are, two thousand years later, and one might be wondering the same questions that seemed to be plaguing the people to whom the letter of Peter was addressed. What are we waiting for? Did the day of the Lord come and we missed it? Is the day of the Lord ever coming at all?
In Advent we talk a lot about waiting, Advent is the season of waiting. And that can feel, well, boring, really. After all, who likes waiting? It conjures to mind images of sitting in the DMV, being stuck in traffic, standing in line. Waiting feels passive, or frustrating, like the control has been taken away from you. God’s going to come, in God’s good time, so you just sit tight until God gets around to showing up. Except the writer of Peter promises us it’s not like that at all. Yes, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” But it’s not that God’s just hanging out, God is patient, working away at bringing all to redemption. And the writer of Peter said, “in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.” But more than that, the writer of Peter went on, there is something for us to do while we are waiting. We are to “lead lives of holiness and godliness” because such lives are not just about something to do while we’re waiting, but in fact hasten the coming of the day of God.
So by waiting, by actively waiting, we in fact become a part of the new thing that God is doing in the world. Waiting for the day of the Lord is not a passive activity, something that we have to just sit around twiddling our thumbs until God deigns to make an appearance. Waiting is an opportunity for us to be a part of God’s creative presence in the world. It is an invitation to live into the redemption that God is bringing even now.
This gets us back to our Gospel reading for this morning. Last week Advent started, sort of randomly it seemed, at the end of Mark. This week, we hear the start, Mark one, the reading even started, “The beginning.” Actually, this Gospel reading starts even before the beginning. We call this book of the Bible, the Gospel of Mark. But its author titled it something different. Mark one, one is actually the title, “The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.” This is not announcing the beginning of the story; it is announcing that the whole story is the beginning. Everything that followed, from John the Baptist appearing in the wilderness to the stars falling from heaven to the crucifixion to the empty tomb, all of that is just the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
This is a bit of an aside, but for me stuff like this is really what makes the Bible come alive, what makes the Bible a living word. It’s these places in scripture where the Bible itself is like, look, this is only the beginning. The Bible itself, rich and full and clear as it is about the message of God’s love and God’s salvation of the world, is like, hey, everything here is only the beginning. God is bigger, more powerful, more graceful that can ever be contained, even in a book as long and as rich and as full as this. Mark isn’t the only place the Bible makes this claim. John’s Gospel says it, the poetry of Genesis sings it, the prophets hope proclaims it, the imagery of Revelation illustrates it. The scriptures themselves testify that in them we find the beginning, the place where we can meet God, so that the rest of God’s amazing story unfolding before us can be seen. The Bible does not promise an end to our questions; if it did it would be a dead word, a closed story. What the Bible promises us is that it teaches us how to look for the answers. We come here, to this sacred book, because we know that it shows us Christ, so that we can see Christ in the world around us.
The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Everything here, in this Gospel, in this Bible, everything we’ve experienced, is just the beginning, just a foretaste of the feast God is preparing for God’s creation. The best thing you can imagine, it’s just the beginning. And the worst thing, the darkest place, the biggest ending, endings as solemn as the slam of a rock against a tomb, the starkness of a cross, all of that is not the end of the story, it is merely the beginning. The worst thing that can happen is never the last thing that will happen. Because after the cross comes resurrection; after the closing of the tomb comes the stone being rolled away. After death comes life. So we wait. Not passively, but actively. Waiting, watching, working to restore the kingdom of God, knowing that such work hastens God’s coming into the world. And we do all this because God promises that this is just the beginning. Amen.
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