December 10: Prepare the Way of the Lord

Second Sunday of Advent

Saint Peter shows us a characteristic of God that we normally do not think about. He tells us that for God, “a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Somehow, God is not restricted by time as we are. Taken literally, that seems to violate the laws of physics. Of course, God made those laws, so if anyone can ignore them, God certainly could. More likely, because early Christians sometimes complained that Jesus’ second coming had been delayed, Peter is trying to tell us that what seems like a long time to us is nothing to God.

Like the early Christians, we may wonder how long it will take for God to answer our prayers. We may be praying for someone who is looking for a job, a sick relative, an end to abortion, or world peace. Some prayers just take time to be answered, especially if a large number of people need to change their hearts to make it happen. Some prayers require us to change, and we may not be ready.

What Peter means is that a thousand years is not too long for God if someone needs that long to repent. God is far more patient than we are. If someone had been fighting me for months or years, I would probably give up on them. But God can wait till we are mature enough to face our sins and be sorry for them. In the same way, God has been “waiting” over two thousand years for us to preach the gospel to all nations. God has been waiting for millennia for people to give up war as a means for solving our problems. God has been waiting since the beginning of the human race for us to learn how to love our neighbor.

We might not be as patient as God but we can help. Saint Peter says that we are not just waiting for the Lord’s return, we are hastening it. When we make a choice that is based on faith rather than selfishness, we make it a little easier for people to believe in God. Jesus is the light of the world; he asks us to let our light shine, so that people can see Jesus in us. May our light “prepare the way of the Lord”  (Mark 1:3).

Tom Schmidt