Do You Know What Time It Is
Romans 13:11-14, “Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
November 28, 2010: Matthew 24:36-44, Do You Know What Time It Is
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
Our son Greg pointed out that in our culture, Christmas now comes around Veteran’s Day, a good two weeks before Thanksgiving. Especially in a tough economy when businesses want folks to get out and shop and spend a lot of money to celebrate the birth of Jesus, (cough, cough) it seems to get earlier every year. I couldn’t believe The Grinch Who Stole Christmas was on TV a full week before Thanksgiving. Maybe they should make a prequel, The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving, because it seems like that holiday is disappearing!
In church we are not encouraged to rush headlong to Christmas. For centuries the church has looked to the weeks leading up to Christmas as a time of preparation. The season known as Advent is a time of watching and waiting with expectation for the arrival of Jesus. It is a time of reflection and penance not so much of rushing and spending. We look back to remember Jesus’ birth and we look forward remembering his promise that he will return. Ever since the first days after the resurrection of Jesus up to the present moment there have always been some Christians who have been very anxious to know when Jesus is returning to earth in glory. The risen Christ is quoted in Acts 1:7-8 saying to the disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” All Christians have not been willing to accept this word from the Lord. Instead of concentrating on the task of living as witnesses for Christ in the present, they try to calculate the time the Lord will return in the future.
Throughout history there have been people using visions, images, and prophecies in the Bible they have insisted referred to events in their own time that fulfill predictions about when Jesus is going to return. The fact that all previous attempts in every generation to do the same have been false does not deter others in our day from boldly and confidently continuing down the same unfruitful path.
The first verse of today’s gospel lesson does not support prying into God’s plan about which even the angels of heaven and Jesus himself are not fully informed. According to Matthew’s gospel, top level angels like Gabriel and Michael, and even Jesus himself are waiting on God’s final word. What is it then that makes people think we can play with prophecies, numbers, alleged secret codes, and discover what was not revealed even to Jesus? If you look at some Christian book catalogues it becomes apparent that some people claim to know more about the second coming of Jesus than…Jesus! The title I like best is, “The Last Days Are Here…Again.” (It is by Richard Kyle and is a history of the end times). Listen to Matthew’s Gospel:
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.
Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Every year the gospel lesson for the first Sunday of Advent has to do with the second coming of Christ. If this passage is not encouraging us to spend our time trying to calculate a date or time for that event, what is Jesus trying to tell us? I think Jesus is teaching us to be different. We are not to go about our lives like everyone else does. When you think about it, virtually everything Jesus says encourages his followers to be different and not to carry on our lives like other folks do. Jesus and Paul are telling us to recognize what time it is – that it is always time to live responsibly, to carry on faithfully in the present because no one knows when he is coming again or when we may be going to be with the Lord.
A businessman from Wisconsin went on a trip to Louisiana. Upon arriving, he immediately plugged in his lap top and sent a short email back home to his wife, Jennifer Johnson, at her address, JennJohn@world.net. Unfortunately in his haste, he mistyped a letter and the email went to a JeanJohn@world.net, a Jean Johnson in Duluth, MN, the wife of a preacher who had recently died and was buried that day. The preacher’s wife took one look at the email and fainted. It read, “Arrived safely, but sure is hot down here.”
A lot of times the second coming of Jesus is discussed in terms of hell, fire, and punishment. However, the delay of Jesus’ return is an act of grace on God’s part. 2 Peter 3:9-10a says, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.”
The delay of Jesus’ return is a reflection of God’s patience and grace.
The question is: are we ready to meet Jesus in all his glory and power if he showed up today?
If we know someone is coming to our home to see us, there is an accountability factor that motivates all of us. We are re-financing our mortgage so we had to clean up our entire house before the appraiser came a week ago yesterday. It was a big job since we had all the stuff we had brought from my parents house in Brookline. When I was a kid our house was never one that would have appeared in the pages of Good Housekeeping. When my parents told my sisters and I we had to clean up, vacuum, and dust, one of us would always ask, “Why, who’s coming?” Many people who hosted a Thanksgiving gathering spent a lot of time getting ready for company – cleaning up, putting things away, preparing food, and decorating their home so it would be warm and inviting for their guests. There is nothing wrong with that – it makes other people feel special and welcomed.
Jesus asks if we are making similar diligent and careful preparations in our lives for the arrival of a beloved and distinguished guest whose importance is unsurpassed. As hard as it is for some us to do, if we keep our home in the kind of shape that we are ready if someone drops by unexpectedly, we won’t be stressed out if someone suddenly shows up. However, if our home is unprepared for company, then even knowing that someone is arriving at 6:00 p.m. will produce all kinds of pressure and stress as we rush around and try to straighten up. The same principle is true when it comes to keeping our spiritual house in order. If we are spiritually prepared at all times, we won’t be worried about when Jesus is coming in the future because we will be doing what he tells us to do in the present – telling the good news of God’s love, assisting the poor, feeding the hungry, helping the sick, confronting injustice, caring for God’s creation, sharing our resources, and being instruments of the Lord’s peace. Advent is a time for cleaning up our act, putting away some old or even “unclean” habits, preparing for Jesus to be truly present in our daily life, and getting the home of our heart in order.
One of the challenges for Christians in this season of the church calendar is that every year we are encouraged to read the same scriptures, occupied by the usual suspects – the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, angels and shepherds; we sing the same songs, we take out the same decorations, we watch the same specials and movies, we follow the same routine. While there is comfort and nostalgia in carrying on as usual, we have to watch out for complacency. What changes over the years is not the Bible but us. As we experience life in all of its joy and pain, its celebrations and grief, the birth and death of loved ones, the stages and seasons of life – we can ask ourselves: Have I grown in the year that has passed since last Christmas? Am I the same person I was a year ago? Where has there been some growth, some stretching, some letting go and releasing, some new ideas or new ways of thinking, some engagement and witness, some acts of devotion, mission, or service, some new challenge of faith through which the Spirit of God has touched my life so that I am not the same person I was a year ago. Every year on A Charlie Brown Christmas Charlie Brown and Lucy are the same – he is depressed and despondent, she is rude and self-centered. They are never going to change, what about us?
Some people will tell you they have been a Christian for 30 years. I am more struck by the question, Have I been a Christian for 30 years, or have I been a Christian for one year, 30 times? How are we preparing for and getting ready for the coming of Christ this Christmas?
Jesus makes the point that Noah’s neighbor’s had all kinds of time to ask him why he was building such a big boat, obviously it took a long time, but apparently everyone just went about life as usual, or at least as usual as it could be with a neighbor with a big construction project and a growing assortment of unusual pets. But there is no record of folks asking, “Hey, what’s the story? What are you doing? Why the ark?” The flood caught a careless and unprepared generation off guard. We want to be ready when the Lord comes by being witnesses for him as he told us.
The other image Jesus uses, which is a favorite image in the New Testament for the unexpectedness of the Messiah’s coming, is that of a thief in the night. If the owner of the house knew when the thief was coming he would have stayed awake and prevented the theft. 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4, warns,
“The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
But you, beloved are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief.”
If we are living in the light of the Lord, we will be engaged in the mission and ministry Jesus has entrusted to us. I like the story of a man named Harry an 85 year old silver haired gentleman, as fine a man as you could meet, but he had a hard life both as a child and a young adult. Since he retired he has lived in Daytona Beach, Florida. As a young boy, he was the sole care and support for his crippled mother who was bed ridden. He stayed in school and most every afternoon on his way home he would go down a back alley behind the local grocery store, sneak in the open back door, and steal whatever food he could reach so that he and his mother could eat that night. This went on for several years.
Later when Harry was out of school and had a good paying job, he went back to the store owner and explained that for years he had stolen groceries and would now like to pay him back for what he had taken. The grocer listened to Harry’s story but refused to take any form of payment saying, “Why do you suppose there was always some food right inside the back door?” The owner was like a man who was living in the light and not in darkness, he was not surprised by the thief nor was he “asleep.” He was alert and aware of Harry’s family situation. So he prepared for the boy’s visits so Harry and his mom could have food and hope.
A lot of people, if you asked them what they wanted for Christmas, one answer you might get is, “money.” People look at money as valuable, but there is something more valuable than money. We can always make more money. If we lose money, like in the stock market, we have a chance to get it back. Time is more precious than money because it is irreplaceable. Once used, invested, or squandered, time can never be replaced; we can never get it back. Yet it seems some people go sleep-walking through life, never realizing the value of their time.
Back in the 1970’s the band Chicago had a song, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” Does anybody really care about time?
The Bible says we should. In today’s passage from Romans when Paul says it is time that we awake from sleep he means to wake up from a spiritual sleep. It doesn’t matter whether you use a watch, a clock, or a cell phone to tell the time. In a spiritual sense, it is always time to wake up!
Prayer: God grant us your children a blessed Advent Season. You know the busyness and stress that seem to be inherent in the days before us. Give us calmness and moments of quiet time as well as alertness to your coming into our lives in the presence of others. In Christ’s name. Amen.