What Kind of People?

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8
2 Peter 3

Advent 2

Bad news about our economy abounds these days. Once-in-a-generation unemployment rates, one-half million jobs lost in November alone, the big three US automakers in the death throes, record-high mortgage foreclosures, consumer confidence in the dumps, along with myriad other statistics and projections leave us wondering how bad it's going to be and how long we and it can last. At the heart of the volatility in the markets is a crisis in confidence, an awareness of our fundamental uncertainty as to where and when this downturn will end. Looking into such a scary future, we might even wonder whether it will end.

The three lectionary texts for the second Sunday in Advent have in common their assurance that everything eventually comes to an end. Isaiah emphasizes the promise of God that trouble doesn't last always. No matter how intense the trauma or hopeless the prospects, God's infinite lovingkindness insures that those who wait on the Lord have a good ending. Mark's gospel presents the preamble to the whole Gospel's message in that John the Baptizer's presence in the wilderness represented the end of a very long wait for God's people.

But it is the message of 2nd Peter that gets to the heart of the issue for us. After reminding the impatient and fainting believers that God will make good on the divine promise, the author then turns the spotlight on the community of faith: Since we know all of this, what kind of people ought we to be? In other words, since everything, including the world, will end, what do we want to be doing when the end comes?

Beloved, the church has something to offer that our culture at this moment sorely tneeds: a holy perspective. Even when we would want to forget, the message returns to us and like the prophet cries, "All flesh is grass." But the fact that everything on earth is in transition from its seed to flower then back to dust doesn't leave us hopeless; it points us to a more stable foundation. Our own frailty reminds us to seek a God who is neither frail nor fallible and whose word will stand. Grass withers, flowers fall, markets crash, people die, but the Word of our God stands forever. That's good news that we should share.

Sing, "Hold to God's Unchanging Hand"