Patience has been described as, “The quality you admire in the driver behind you butcan’t stand in the driver in front of you.”

For most of us, patience is hard. But in the time leading up to Advent, and during Advent itself, we’re told over and over again to prepare—and to wait with patience—for the coming of the Lord, both in the past and in the future. 

And so it’s a nice contrast in this Second Week of Advent, that we, along with the original recipients of 2 Peter are strongly encouraged—not to work on our own patience—but to consider instead the gracious patience of the Lord.

Turns out, he’s really good at it.

Americans are impatient. Or at least I am. Two days on Amazon Prime? Too long!
 
Wait? The ubiquitous droning message of the commercial world is, Don't. Have it now.
 
This stands in cultural contrast to Advent: a season of waiting as we look forward to a joyous celebration that begins on Christmas Day—a feast intensified by anticipation.
 
It’s easy to be impatient for something good, and if you are, you’re in good company. The Prophet Isaiah certainly was.

This Sunday we commemorate Christ the King—the culmination of the Church's year.

We followed the drama from the birth of Jesus through his life of teaching and healing to his suffering and death. We rejoiced in his resurrection. We shared the life of the Spirit at Pentecost. We’ve sought to share the Gospel’s staggering implications through all the Ordinary Time of the church in the world.

As we finish the Church year we look to the end, not merely as conclusion, but completion…the perfection, the fulfilment of the purpose toward which all that Jesus said and did was directed. We anticipate the day when his glory and power as King will be fully revealed.

This is something about which to be truly thankful.

Many assume that the opposite of love is hate, but it’s not. The opposite of love is apathy.
 
Similarly, the opposite of faith may not be what you assume. And its faith’s opposite that underlies and drives the narrative in this week’s Gospel reading.
 
Is it driving you, too?

"No, no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Martin Luther King Jr. found inspiration from the prophet Amos as he anticipated a mighty work of God in his generation. Amos wrote a fearsome warning to those who refused to live in God's just and peaceable kingdom, but King saw these words as one who was the victim of injustice and thus found them a triumphant rallying cry. 

It's all about perspective, I suppose. 

We pray each week that God's kingdom would come and his will would be done. The answer to this prayer is certain. Are we ready for it? God's justice will flood the earth, and if we are not careful it might roll over us. Let us therefore learn to follow a righteous King that we may celebrate and not mourn on the great Day of the Lord.