II Peter 3:8-15a: The End of the World As We Know It!

Lectionary Cycle Year B: Second Sunday in Advent
II Peter 3:8-15a (Read it on Bible Gateway)
The End of the World As We Know It!
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In this reading from the second epistle of Peter, we once more deal with the dual focus of Advent. Remember, Advent is the season of anticipation. In part it is when we remember those who waited for the coming of the messiah, a wait finally fulfilled in Bethlehem that holy night. However, it is also a reminder to us that we as Christians, await Christ's Second Coming.

This passage captures all the classic imagery of the so-called Apocalypse that has become such a mainstay of popular theology. The sudden, shocking, destruction of the world, the heavens being burned away in fire, the entire world being laid bare and so on and so forth. It's the sort of Scripture that has inspired many filmmakers and been at the heart of many doomsday prophets.

I remember in my younger days, during the height of the Cold War, when this passage and others like it, served as the means for preachers and speakers to capitalize on people's fears of nuclear war by claiming that Scripture prophesied it. After all, the imagery seems to capture an atomic explosion fairly well; burning skies, blasted and wasted land.

Today, as we have laid to rest many fears of all out nuclear war, and instead find ourselves facing a growing ecological crisis, there are those who now link the images of the "Day of the Lord" to the ultimate ruin of Global Warming and the threat of a collapse of our planet's ecology.

We could just as easily talk about the world ending under the changing face of the sun, as it expands, and eventually dies in a supernova. However, since that is so far in the future, it lacks any sort of motivational element with the immediacy of its threat.

My point here is that while many of these concerns are legitimate, they are not necessarily the focus of such Scriptures. Yes, nuclear war was a grave threat; it still is, and thus should be addressed. Global Warming is a real and dire threat and the recognition of our continuing, and often careless, impact on our planet's climate is a serious issue that if we don't act will only continue to escalate out of control. Someday, if we make it that long, our distant descendants will also have to worry about the sun.

But these are not the point of this Scripture.

Peter was not attempting to frighten people with thoughts of the world's end, but instead to encourage a reliance on faith and a commitment to God, the one constant in the ever-changing universe.

There is something here we can look at in terms of our own lives as well. We live in an ever-transient world. The landscape of life is drastically different today than it was fifty years ago, as a matter of fact, it's drastically different than it was even ten, or five years ago. At this rate, each year seems drastically different than the last. Shifting dynamics in world politics, war, disasters, ecological and economic collapse...all of it leads to a faster and faster pace of upheaval in our lives.

Where do we turn in the midst of that chaos? Where do find stability in upheaval, consistency in change and order in chaos? Simple... God.

The whole point of Peter's passage is that we should not worry or feel that God has forgotten us, but hold fast to the promises that God has made to us. Peter is not concerned with the specifics or the trigger or the timing when the old earth will pass away. Instead his focus is on living in the promise of the new one to come.

Our faith is not a mere belief in God, but a belief in the promises of God. Our hope is not simply in God's existence, but in God's compassion and dedication to us, God's wayward children. This is why we must remember those promises, why even now, two-thousand years later we do still wait for Christ to come again, because we are a people of faith, a people of hope and a people of promise.


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