I Want To Be Ready!

Dr. Michael Browder, Pastor
Sunday, December 7, 2008
II Peter 3:2-14

There is nothing harder in the world than waiting. Do you know what I mean? I have no patience. You should see me in traffic! Oh, I do pray for patience. I really do. My prayer is: Lord, give me patience right this minute!

Children, in particular, can lack patience. Have you noticed that? “Are we there yet?” “Why can’t we do it now?” And what do children hate to wait for more than anything else on earth? Yes, it’s (wait for it) Christmas! Yes, Christmas! Children just can’t wait ‘til Christmas comes.

I remember that feeling when I was a kid living in the wilds of Disputanta. We couldn’t wait ‘til Christmas. And there was another event, which came before Christmas that caused us to wait on pins and needles.

That event was the coming of the Sears catalogue. Oh, how we waited for it every day, after the weather turned cool. So many disappointing trips to the mailbox. Finally, there it was. We pounced on it. We tried to tear it from one another. Inevitably Mama had to intervene. We would be forced to take turns. There would be a time limit.

And, oh my, to gaze on the pages of a new Sears catalogue was pure ecstasy. The previous year’s catalogue had lost its luster. (Some of you can only imagine what an old Sears catalogue was used for.)

But a new catalogue was a sight to behold. All the toys that were brand new that year. And in our imagination we could own any of them. In our imagination we could own all of them!

But eventually the day would come, when we would have to choose. The deadline was the annual pilgrimage to Miller & Rhodes, to see the “real” Santa Claus. And once you whispered your choice into his ear, it was sealed until Christmas morning.

Waiting. Waiting and waiting. So beautiful and touching as I remember it now, so hard to do at the time. Advent is about waiting. During Advent, we prepare for the coming of Jesus again. But it is also the season when we think about the Second Coming of Christ, his return in glory. Advent as “coming” can also mean Second Coming. Bible scholars refer to this as the Parousia, the Greek word used in the New Testament.

The Apostles, who had known Jesus, and walked the roads of Galilee with him, had seen his death, and resurrection, and ascension. They remembered the prophecy of his return. They waited for him every day, every hour. Our scripture today, from the Second Epistle of Peter, is one of the scriptures that talks about the Lord’s coming again.

One of the questions that was being asked then, and still is being asked now, is: “Why has Christ not yet returned?” But even now, God’s people have not yet received the answer to that question. And so, we continue to wait and wonder: When will the Lord come?

That is another one of the great questions in the history of Jesus’ followers: Exactly when will the Lord return? And many self-styled prophets from the time of the Bible down to this very day have attempted to set a date. Thousands of those prophecies have come and gone. One of the most dramatic moments came more than 100 years ago when 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses went out and sat on a hill on the day that their leader had prophesied. They brought exactly 144,000 people, because that’s what it says in the book of Revelation, and they sat and waited. When the Lord, didn’t come, their leader had to come up with a new prophecy.

There seems to be a special breed of person who obsesses on the end times. I had one such soul in my last church. He spent hours memorizing the details of the Book of Revelation and matching it to events in the newspaper. Every couple of months, he would set a specific date for Christ’s return. Finally I said, “Joe, if the Lord comes next month, I will be glad to see him. But meanwhile, be sure to keep your tithe paid up!”

But it’s not just kooks who think about the Lord’s return. Most of us serious Christians think about it sometimes. How can we picture these prophecies in the Bible? What will it be like when the Lord comes? With the Left Behind books and movies, a whole industry has grown up around this topic. We have graphic artists’ descriptions of such events as the Rapture, when believers will suddenly be taken up to meet the Lord. (I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said: “In case of the Rapture, no one will be driving this car.)

I have studied these matters a little bit, and what I find is that the more people study it, the more differences of opinion they have. One of the big questions for debate is: Will the Millennium, the thousand years of God’s kingdom, occur before or after Christ comes again?

The dominant view today is that the Millennium must wait until Christ returns. In the early days of Methodism, however, most Christians believed that the kingdom has started now, that God is already doing marvelous things among his people, things that will pave the way for Christ’s return. I share this view. I think we are already starting to experience the Kingdom of God.

As to the problems of setting the date for Christ’s return, I think II Peter offers us an explanation in our scripture today. He says our view of time is not the same as God’s perspective. “A thousand years in God’s sight is as but a moment.” It reminds us of how the Lord says in Isaiah: “My ways are not your ways.”

And II Peter makes another important point. The imminent return of the Lord should motivate us to put our lives in order. The Parousia is not primarily about the future and speculation. It is about our behavior now. We don’t want to be like the foolish virgins in the parable who fell asleep before their master returned. We want to be ready, with our lamps burning. And the lamp that the Lord is looking for is a life of faith lived to the glory of God.

I love that old hymn that says: I want to be ready. I want to be ready. I want to be ready when Jesus comes.

I have seen some very powerful stories about people who found out they only had a short time to live and who did some incredible things in the short time they had left to them.

What would you do if you knew you only had a short time to live? Surely, you would put your life in order. Surely, you would get right with God. I thought about these things recently, as I watched my friend Seymour die of cancer. What would you do if you only had a short time to live?

My friend, you only have a short time to live. God only allows us to be in this world for a few decades. Not many of us live to the century mark. The Lord may not come tomorrow . . . but he may take you home at any time. There is only a fine line between life and death. There is no guarantee that you live to see tomorrow. If you wake up tomorrow to live another day, it will be a gracious gift from God.

Are we prepared? I pray that we are. The day of the Lord’s coming is upon us.

I want to be ready. I want to be ready. I want to be ready when Jesus comes!