Holiness
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. 2 Peter 3:10–13
There’s nothing like the ‘end of days’ to grab your attention. It’s been a go-to place for preachers for years. The congregation after a long week at work, beginning to nod off... the preacher lowers their voice, stamps their feet and mentions the ‘end times’… everyone’s back in the room pretty quick.
Armageddon, it certainly conjures the imagination. Bruce Willis drilled through an asteroid to avert it and millions of us went to the cinema to watch him do that! Interesting, also, how we see ourselves coping if it were to happen. It seems to go two ways in the films, good or bad; either we’re heroic characters that fall in or realise true love, or there’s looting and chaos. And the nearer the asteroid gets, the more we’re pushed to the extremes. Lots of looting and lots of I love yous.
Contemplating our end brings into sharp focus the questions of who we really are and who we really wanna be doesn’t it? When you’re caused to stop and consider the possibility of a nasty diagnosis, watch a film good enough to raise in your imagination the possibility of this world coming to an end, or (as God through his word challenges us to) think that this world will ‘pass away’ and some kind of reckoning lies in front of us, we think about who we are; who we want to be.
Peter describes the day of the Lord’s return as being like a thief. This doesn’t mean our stuff’s gonna be nicked by God, rather we don’t know when he’ll come round! But to quote Johnny Cash, he will come around. Logic being as with a burglar, you can’t know when they’ll visit, but knowing they do, means we live prepared!
How are you prepped for the end? Whichever one you think it is! Think you’ll go with looting or heroism and true love when it comes round? Peter suggests something that no-one in any of the films does. ‘You ought to live holy and Godly lives.’
In the many to-do lists we write to maximise our time here on planet earth I don’t imagine ‘holy’ features much. We have bucket lists where we skydive, swim in the Nile or learn the tango! It’s hard to imagine then, as Peter suggests, that the threat of armageddon will get ‘holy’ higher up the list. But that’s exactly what he says. Because you don’t know how long you have and it ends, be holy!
We have lots of pithy sayings about living with the threat of our end. Life’s short, you’re not promised tomorrow so… take a risk, spend your money, have no regrets. But never be holy.
As it goes, it’s more likely we try holiness out in the hope it’ll guarantee us a bit more quality time on earth. If I’m good and do ‘God stuff’, surely (if he’s there) he’ll look down on me and smooth the path out a bit; good health and a few more days on planet earth. It’s actually nearer karma than gospel and it’s an easy place to end up but the incentive can unravel quickly when things don’t go our way. Karma won’t make you holy.
Peter says we should be holy. How do we get to the place where this is something we want to do? There are loads of reasons in the Bible for this but Peter lays out a few good ones.
The picture is of the earth being refined by fire. Everything is laid bare. Everything exposed to the fiercest heat and judgement. Everything temporary burned up. Only what is eternal endures.
What is eternal? What will endure?
We get a glimpse of the answer to this question in the story of the Exodus. Israel is captive to a far superior worldly power in Egypt; nothing it seems could possibly liberate it from Pharaoh’s grasp, not least a nomadic shepherd wandering around in the wilderness. Moses sees a bush on fire though and this bush doesn’t burn up; there’s something different about it, it’s not going out. The God speaking in the bush is holy. He sticks around, as will his purposes and promises and the words of his mouth. So too, the people who’ll listen, who follow the flame! Against all the odds and all the gods. Israel follows Moses out of Egypt with its citizens wishing them well and loading them with gifts as they leave.
God does what he says… Forever! He’s holy! He doesn’t burn out!
The call to holiness in the middle of the day in the middle of the 21st century, in the middle of a career, in the middle of life is an outrageously impossible one, an undesirable one given the fierce direction much of society heads in. Yet, as Peter says, and we through faith believe, “if everything is destroyed in this way” if God’s reign is coming certain and sure. A kingdom where the meek, humble and righteous are blessed. What type of people ought we to be?
Peter talks of holiness now as part of God’s kingdom in the future, the same way we talk about advent calendars and play Christmas songs before Christmas. Because we know the feast day is coming, because we know how good this day can be, we can’t resist starting early; we can’t avoid getting into the Christmas spirit, we declare it to ourselves and to others; we put the lights up so the whole street can see!
We anticipate it! We live in it before it arrives!
We follow the calling to be holy because we see his Kingdom coming. Because we see His kingdom coming we see the temporal kingdoms around us; the ones built for us and the ones we build, falling away. The calling we have to separate ourselves, prioritise ourselves for something that lasts, makes sense.
Holiness doesn’t make much sense if all we see is ourselves in this moment. But if we look beyond that, if we look ahead to the future, if we look beyond ourselves towards God, we start to see ‘holy’ and our need for it. Holiness stops being a ball and chain and becomes a sweet glimpse of the future, something you get to open early and taste. A song to give us hope we can’t help but sing, no matter how sentimental and outrageously hopeful it sounds to those around us.
We can only really see this in Jesus. The Bible tells us about the end but Jesus’ life, death and resurrection assure us that while the end is coming, it is good too.
He makes holy understood.
Ash Gibson, Pastor, Christchurch Xscape
