Advent is the season of “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,” to use the phrase from the epistle lesson. With years of practice, we’ve gotten adept at making our preparations to celebrate Christ’s birth, the other focus of Advent. We know what it takes to get the Christmas decorations out and up, how to get the presents made or bought and wrapped for everyone on our list, which charities will benefit from our generosity, when to get the cards written and in the mail, what food to prepare when and for whom, how to schedule our time to work in all the visiting, parties, and festivities with our friends and relatives, and even to take time to reflect on “the reason for the season.” But what are we doing to hasten the second coming of Christ?

The epistle says it is “lives of holiness and godliness” that are called for. As we learn more about quantum physics and the interrelationship of all creation, we begin to recognize that what you and I do here and now resounds throughout all creation, reaching farther than we can begin to imagine. Monks and nuns have long known their daily prayers are effective for all in God’s economy, but our view of our personal impact on the world tends to be limited to what we can see before us. If we can’t see how God is using us to reach others with his love, then it must not be happening—until and unless we begin to accept the truth of quantum physics, which demonstrates that the butterfly flapping his wings over my pansies affects the weather half-way around the world.

John the baptizer came to prepare the way for Christ Jesus’ first mission in the world, calling people to repentance, to turn away from all the things that we have allowed to become barriers to our relationship with God and to return to the Lord with open and grateful hearts. According to the epistle, that is still what delays the day of the Lord: “The Lord…is patient…not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” Our honest self-examination and heart-felt repentance during this Advent season can lead us to “lives of holiness and godliness” and will, in the fullness of time, hasten the coming of the day of God.