In my job here at St. John the Baptist, I deal quite a bit with young children. I get questions like:

“When was God born?”

“What was before God?”

“Was God lonely before he created everything?”

“Will God end?”

I’m sure these questions don’t surprise you. You’ve probably had these questions asked by the children in your lives. And you probably know from experience that it’s difficult for kids to wrap their heads around the answers to these questions.

“God doesn’t have a birthday – he always was.”

“There is no ‘before’ God.”

“God doesn’t experience loneliness.”

“God is forever.”

I have to admit that I find it funny sometimes to see the looks in the kids’ faces when I give them these kinds of answers. You can literally see the gears in their brains start to grind and clank and very nearly come to a halt!

You see, these kids don’t have the capacity to deal with the very abstract. They can’t get their heads wrapped around a concept like “infinite.” This isn’t surprising since we, as adults, have the same problem.

And Christians have always had this problem. We read in 2 Peter that he was dealing with this issue when he wrote his letter to the church. The early church was asking:

“Why hasn’t Jesus returned yet?”

“When’s Jesus coming?”

Peter’s answer then is still powerful today: A day is as a thousand years in the Lord’s eyes.

We humans are finite creatures. We are born and we will die. We exist on the timeline of creation – which like us, had a beginning and like us, will have an end.

But God is beyond this timeline.

He’s outside of time.

We are now in the beautiful season of Advent. Advent is where we, as people of faith, welcome the day the infinite God made himself finite – he became man for our redemption.

Think about that wonderful image of the Advent Wreath and what it symbolizes. In Advent, we, as a people of faith, can have hope. Hope because God is faithful and will, as Peter also says in his second letter, “keep his promise.”

In Advent, we, as a people of faith, can be instruments of peace in the world. The angels said “peace on earth, good will toward men.” Advent calls to mind that we are to be instruments of the Savior’s peace in the world.

In Advent, we, as a people of faith, have joy. Joy because how could we be anything else but joyful – Salvation is coming!

In Advent, we, as a people of faith, have love. Love because we are to love as God loves – so much so that we are to give ourselves for the other – without counting the cost.

Brothers and sisters, even though it is impossible to truly comprehend the infinite God, we are to be a hopeful people, a joyful people, a people of peace, and people love. Advent helps us focus on these things – to be these things in preparation for the infinite God to come to us in the form of a baby born in a lowly manger.

And, as faithful people - even though a thousand years are as a day to the Lord – we are, as the psalmist says, to be still and know that God is God.

He will keep his promise.

- Deacon Jay VanHoosier