Week of 2 Advent, Sunday

"Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation" (2 Peter 3:15).

This would make a good motto for the Patience family crest, I think, and it's a good theme for Advent reflection.

Like the Thessalonians, the believers to whom Peter's letter is addressed are concerned about the last day -- and especially why it hasn't come yet. Peter urges them to consider "what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God." But he also offers a beautiful thought about why that day hasn't come yet.

"Beloved," he writes, "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."

This single passage clarifies for me why fire-and-brimstone threats have no place in our preaching. That sort of threat, playing on people's fear, distorts the picture of God we present to the world. We are not "sinners in the hands of an angry God," but are rather the object of God's limitless patience and mercy.

God wants us all, and God has time to wait until we're all ready to join him.