Wednesday • 12/1/2021
Wednesday of the First Week of Advent

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1–24; Amos 3:12–4:5; 2 Peter 3:1–10; Matthew 21:23–32

The Daily Lectionary reading of 2 Peter for this year (Year One), does not include chapter 2. For observations from 2 Peter 2 from Year Two, see https://tinyurl.com/8cxcddz4 for 2 Peter 2:1–10a, from 12/16/2020; https://tinyurl.com/5ukhhuzk for 2 Peter 2:10b–16, from 12/17/2020; and https://tinyurl.com/375377bm for 2 Peter 2:17–22, from 12/18/2020.

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

2 Peter: of “scoffers with scoffing”

Even though the New Testament is not beset with having to explain the so-called “failure of the Parousia (the return of Christ)” as some people think, it is wonderful to see Peter taking a good sidelong glance at early purveyors of that wrongheaded notion. At 2 Peter 3:3, he calls them “scoffers with scoffing.”

The “scoffers” have an ethical agenda. “…[I]n the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts…” (2 Peter 3:3). The scoffers deliberately suppress truth, says Peter (2 Peter 3:5), because they don’t want certain things to be true. In the previous chapter, Peter writes about influencers in the church who “speak bombastic nonsense” that is a cover for “licentious desires.” Those influencers use their bombast, he argues, to “promise freedom,” when “they themselves are slaves of corruption” (2 Peter 2:19). We now find in 2 Peter 3 that in order to rationalize mischief-making they deny the accountability that the Lord’s return would bring. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The “scoffers” assume that the elements are static, that what always has been must remain as it is in perpetuity, that, in a word, there can be no interruption in the space-time continuum: “For ever since our ancestors died,” they insist, “all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!” (2 Peter 3:4). Peter counters by asserting that everything that is, is not eternal. To Peter (and to the entire outlook of the Bible), the creation of the space-time continuum was something that could not have been anticipated. And it came about in the first place simply by “God’s word.” The big bang theory only confirms the mystery of something suddenly coming to be from nothing; and science offers no more compelling an explanation for how and why that all happened than the Bible’s “God spoke.” There’s no reason to think creation’s consummation is as unthinkable as its dawn.

The “scoffers” think their critical distance from accepted teachings makes them creative and innovative. Peter’s perspective is that they are proving the veracity of prophecies already made about them: “I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles … that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing…” (2 Peter 3:2–3). Unintentionally, the scoffers write themselves into their predetermined place in God’s story. Their error is no big surprise. It’s a part of the anticipated knee-jerk reaction of the power of darkness to the fatal assault that took place against it on the Cross (see Paul’s teaching on the man of lawlessness and John’s on the antichrist).

The “scoffers” assume that time works the same for God as it does for us. “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness…” (2 Peter 3:9a). Anglican priest and translator of the New Testament J. B. Phillips once titled a book Your God Is Too Small. One of the ways we mortals try to put God in a human sized box is by imagining him wearing a Timex that keeps his time in sync with ours. However, what seems like a long time to us is a nanosecond to God. By the same token, he can pack an eternity into, say, three days in a grave, where all the sins of all people of all time and all places are buried once and for all. If it takes millennia for God to gather his whole flock, when we look back from the far side of consummation, the whole process will appear as but a moment. Eternity keeps time differently than we do.

In certain scholarly circles (I’m looking at you, Albert Schweitzer and Ernst Käsemann), the so-called “failure of the Parousia” takes the blame for the perceived flaws of later New Testament writers: the setting in of rigid doctrine, the establishment of a hierarchical church order, and the reconciling of Christian ethics with the values of this world.

I’ve always been skeptical about every aspect of this thesis. To be sure, the apostle Paul, one of the earliest of the New Testament writers, finds he must tell the Thessalonians to settle down, because Christ’s return isn’t necessarily right around the corner. Not only is the Lord’s return not necessarily imminent, according to Paul, but, as Paul tells the Romans, the whole point of history now is about God bringing in a “fullness” of Jew and a “fullness” of Gentile (Romans 11:12,25). Paul doesn’t date those expectations, leaving open, instead, a wide vista on the prospect of a long-lasting mission to the world. As to rigid doctrine, Paul is already denouncing people who get their doctrine wrong (Galatians 1:8). As to church order, Paul refers to bishops and deacons in Philippi (Philippians 1:1). And as to ethics, he explicitly tells those same Philippians to affirm common ground with the values of their pagan neighbors (Philippians 4:8).

The “scoffers” forget that God has a heart. “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). We look around our world, and we see suffering, pain, abuse, and hardship. God looks around, and sees the opportunity for many, many, many more lost image-bearers to respond to his loving overtures. He sees with merciful eyes, and so he elongates the offer of repentance. Peter invites us to see God’s temporary allowance of the continuation of evil as a heartfelt reluctance on his part to pull the trigger on final justice, and an unwillingness to shut the door into the ark of salvation until every elect soul is aboard.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: "Trad watch" by Kent Wang is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0