Advent Devotional for December 8

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Advent Devotional for Wednesday, December 8

2 Peter 3:1-18

It seems to me that anyone with a modicum of sensitivity to the nightly news would have to self-identify as a scoffer. Although we might not share the scoffers’ indulgence, we keep company with the scoffers’ futility: “For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” (3:3) And we’re just being realistic: Blood cries out from the soil, powers collude to oppress the needy, humankind acts as absentee landowner rather than steward of the earth and its waters. Not much seems to have changed from the genesis of creation.

But the writer takes this into account. Read the prophets again, we are told. Remember to tell time according to God’s time, a measurement of a thousand days equaling one day. And, just in case, here are familiar images of the second-coming: There will be judgment, the Lord will come like a thief in the night, there will be noise and fire, and a new heaven and a new earth will be wrought out of these things. We are told these things take time because the Lord wishes everyone the chance to repent.

Advent waiting is about the birth of Jesus Christ and our being brought again to fresh confrontation with that birth’s meaning for the life of the world. But Advent waiting is also about the promised second coming of Christ. God is a God of righteousness. Live in trust, then, as we wait for the promised new heaven and new earth.

You, who created the expanse of the heavens, care for our souls. You, who sustain all time, became earth-bound for our sake. You, who hold the seasons’ turnings, show patience with us. In your righteousness, Holy God, renew the face of the earth and make us your righteousness for one another. In the name of Christ and by the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jennifer L. Lord
Associate Professor of Homiletics

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For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.