Advent 2B (2 Peter 3:8-15a)

​From time to time, we come across some wonderful quotes that we actually want to memorize because they speak some truths. There’s this one quote that I highly recommend all of us to keep in mind. It’s the saying of Adel Bestavros, a Coptic Christian scholar and an Egyptian lawyer: “Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith.” If I may add one more to this according to St. Peter’s second letter which we heard this morning, “God’s patience with us is salvation.” 

During this season of Advent, we hear the theme of preparation and patience. These two are always interconnected. Preparation always presupposes an act of patience. Imagine you’re throwing a surprise party for your loved one. You will prepare a birthday cake, candles, and gifts. You’ll also decorate the place with balloons etc. Then, you’ll wait patiently until the birthday person arrives. This image of a surprise party might be what Advent is like to us, waiting for the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. 

This time, I would like us to flip the side. Let’s place ourselves on the other side where God is preparing a surprise party and patiently waiting for us to be seen, felt, and experienced. It’s not that we’re waiting. God is. Advent becomes the season when we notice God who is always patiently waiting for us, who is constantly coming to our midst. We are the ones who are invited to walk into the darkroom where God’s surprise party is about to happen when all the lights are lit. We’re the ones who will be given a feast of God’s kingdom in our hearts. 

How do we then join this surprise party of God? It’s through contemplation and action. It’s as if we’re walking into a dark room where a surprise is about to happen when lights are turned on. Advent can be considered as the time for us to raise our spiritual awareness to the very presence of God within ourselves. God is so close to us that we cannot see. It’s like we cannot see what’s attached to our foreheads because it’s too close. Advent calls us to the life of contemplation which opens our eyes to see God in our neighbors in need. Contemplation goes like this in my personal experience: We attentively and mindfully sense this intimate nearness of God’s presence as we sit comfortably, close our eyes, and focus on the sensation above our eyebrows around our forehead where the frontal lobe is located. 

When we pay attention just to that physical sensation, thoughts and feelings tend to disappear or settle down. When there’s no thought or feeling arising, we encounter an experience of things unchanging or unmoving. One thought causes another thought like a chain reaction, which indicates a change of time. It’s like at time t1, a thought T1 happens. T1 causes a second thought T2 at t2. But when there’s no thought or feeling taking place, there is neither T1 nor T2. t1 and t2 are not sensed either. We experience something that goes beyond time and space. This is Peter’s experience of the fact that “...with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” With the Lord, there’s no change whatsoever. 

What’s left when everything else disappears as Peter so powerfully describes, “...the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed” is God. Peter’s dramatic depiction of the impermanent nature of everything that exists can be rephrased in our context of contemplation: What’s left after “...the heavens of holy thoughts will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements of thoughts and feelings will be dissolved with fire…” is God who remains in the depth of our being, reveals to the eyes of our hearts, and restores what’s broken and hurt in us. This is when (beyond time) and where (beyond space) we are “found by God at peace, without spot or blemish.” As there’s no shadow at noon, when the light of God is directly overhead, when we’re in the presence of God, when we’re in union with God, there’s no spot or blemish. 

My friends in Christ, I encourage all of us to observe this Advent as God’s invitation to the divine surprise party. We may be slow at going to the feast, but God is not slow but patient. Because God’s patience is salvation, we can and must be hopeful, faithful, and compassionate to ourselves and others in the presence of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.