Waiting for Salvation

Any parent can probably tell me about their experience with this phrase:  ”Are we there yet?”  Children in the back seat, maybe a complaint like “He’s touching me!” or “She’s took my juice box!”  The parents up front turning the radio louder and louder by increments to keep their cool until the next stop… in 60 miles!  This may be a bleak image to use in this wonderful Advent Season, but it also may be appropriate.

We have been waiting on our journey toward salvation for quite some time.  This is 2011.  That means it’s been two-thousand and eleven years since Jesus’ coming as man.  Even before that the people of God were waiting for salvation.  In today’s Gospel at Mass, we have a witness to this anticipation in John the Baptist.  He “was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist.  He fed on locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6).  This is an image of the Prophet Elijah.  The prophets had been looking forward to our deliverance by God for quite some time before Jesus.  John the Baptist quotes Isaiah today.  The original text from today’s first reading cries out: “In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!  Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!” (Isaiah 40:3).  Isaiah ministered over 600 years before Christ, Elijah over 1000, and some estimate the time of Abraham at around 2000 years before Christ.  So, all in all, we’ve been waiting for God’s salvation of humanity for over 4000 years, and still we wait!

We are not just in the backseat of a car on a long family road trip, we are people in a world full of war, violence, hatred, pain, and suffering.  Why would God make us all wait so long under such conditions if he is going to save us anyway?  St. Peter gives us the answer we are seeking today.  ”The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).  God’s patience in bringing the world to it’s fulfillment is ordered toward our salvation.  If Jesus would have ended the world when he came the first time, none of you reading this would have existed.  You would have never had the opportunity to know Christ, to experience God’s love, or to live the life of grace.  In fact, billions of souls have been created by God to join our family and taste salvation.

So, we wait.  However, waiting is not all we must do.  We are not passive passengers on the highway of life.  Our duty and joy lies in both “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12).  How can we hasten the Kingdom of God?  If “we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (ibid. 13), then we show this future by being agents of righteousness.  We oppose the evil of abortion, even though we believe that God will bring the innocent children to his love for eternity.  Why do we do this?  Because standing for righteousness shows the truth and light of God and helps others to see it.  We stand up for the rights of the poor and downtrodden, even though we believe that those who suffer will know the comfort and peace of God in the end.  We do this so that others may witness the love of God enfleshed in human existence.  We work for all righteousness so that we can be missionaries for Christ, and add to the number who come to know him.  Thus, as we await our salvation, we also hasten the day of the Lord in the lives of our brothers and sisters.

How are you faring during our long wait?  Are you ready should the end come?  Are you a missionary for Christ, taking advantage of every moment of possibility for righteousness?  This is our duty, our privilege, and our joy.  We are those who wait for our God, we are those who trust in the faithfulness of our Lord.  In faith we pray, “Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation” (Psalm 85:8).