Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13: 8-14, Matthew 24: 36-44
Brothers and sisters,
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and
our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone which means we
can no longer complain about seeing Christmas decorations on houses or in stores
or on the street. Many of you will soon start getting ready for Christmas as
you make travel plans, cook all kinds of food, and of course go shopping. And
on this first Sunday in Advent your Lord Jesus declares a word of warning to
make sure that you are ready for His coming not 2000 years ago but when He returns
in glory. Your Lord Jesus warns you to stay awake, for you do not know on what day
your Lord is coming.
He is not talking about Christmas, though many
of you would probably say that you were not ready for Christmas. Plans need to
be made. Shopping needs to be done. But even after doing all that will you
truly be ready for Christmas? For that matter are you ready for Jesus
throughout the year? Do you come here with an open heart and mind and a
repentant spirit, yearning to hear a Word from Christ and hungering and
thirsting for righteousness? Or are you content with simply going through the
motions every Sunday but not really giving any thought to Christ Jesus or His
church during the week? Christ Jesus
comes to you this time of year, the same way He always does; in Word and
sacrament. But do you come to worship to hear a divine Word of hope and the
promise of the forgiveness of your sins in Christ Jesus or do you just put in
your time? Do you come to receive the blessed gift of the body and blood of
Christ Jesus in the Lord’s Supper or is it merely a ritual to you?
And what
about the day that Jesus tells you to stay awake for? Would you say that you
are ready for the day of the Lord? Are you ready to meet Christ Jesus when He
returns at the end of time? Most of you would probably say you are. Most of you
would probably be perfectly content with your readiness for the day of the
Lord. And if you come to worship with an open heart and mind and a repentant
spirit hungering and thirsting for righteousness and ears to hear then you likely
are. But if you do not then will you be truly ready to stand before the Lord on
the day of judgment?
In the
Gospel lesson Jesus warns that the coming of the Son of Man will be “…as were
the days of Noah.” He is speaking of the people who did not believe Noah’s warnings,
who did not take Noah seriously, and were instead focused on themselves and their
own instant gratification. So when the flood came they were unaware and the
flood swept them all away. Their real problem was not their wickedness but
their spiritual indifference.
I saw an
article on Friday about Ron Reagan; son of the late President Ronald Reagan. In
this article Ron Reagan declared himself to be an atheist and said that he was
not afraid of burning in hell. Well this is the very picture of spiritual
indifference. Just as those people who lived during Noah’s time were not afraid
of God’s wrath of the flood, Ron Reagan is not afraid of God’s wrath of eternal
torment. But what he and many others fail to realize is that hell is filled
with people who were not afraid of it. And you need not be an atheist to be caught
up in spiritual indifference. There are people who, if asked, would profess
themselves to be Christians who are spiritually indifferent.
Simply
calling yourself a Christian does not make you immune from the attacks and
temptations of the devil. The devil is all around, planting seeds of doubt,
unbelief and spiritual indifference. And so this morning St Paul gives you a
word of warning telling you that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep
and that salvation is nearer to you now than when we first believed. I cannot
tell you on which day the Lord Jesus will return, but I can tell you that we
are one day closer to that day than we were yesterday; one month closer to that
day than we were on Halloween and one year closer to that day than we were on
the first Sunday in Advent last year.
Paul says the hour has come for you wake from
sleep. There is actually a genetic condition that affects the way a person
reacts to sunlight. In other words,
being a morning person is a real thing. A true-blue morning person has a natural
sleep-cycle that depends on a bright light source arriving at the proper time.
If the person does not receive the light cue during the early morning hours
they may feel just as groggy as a night-owl forced to wake up too early. Well
St Paul tells us in the epistle lesson that as believers we are morning people.
As a
believer you have been woken up. The Light of Christ Jesus has broken through
and woke you from the darkness of your spiritual slumber and indifference. But
the day of our Lord has not arrived. The devil is still around and you still
daily do battle with the devil and your inherent love for spiritual darkness.
The devil would love to lull you back into a deep state of spiritual sleep and to
convince you that burning in hell is not something that you need to fear. The
devil would love to deceive you with the lie that all paths go to heaven; the
lie that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe sincerely.
The devil would love for you to be spiritually indifferent.
Martin
Luther describes the contrast between the spiritually dead and the spiritually
alive in this way: He says “The ungodly individual
sleeps. He is in a sense dead in the sight of God. He does not recognize-is not
sensitive to-the real spiritual blessings extended him through the Gospel; he
regards them as valueless. For these blessings are only to be recognized by the
believing heart; they are concealed from the natural man. The ungodly individual
is occupied with temporal, transitory things, such as luxury and honor, which
are to eternal life and joy as dream images are to flesh and blood creatures.”
All those
things that we by default love and desire; money, power, status, prestige; all
those possessions of our neighbors that we covet; all of it is-in the grand
scheme of things-like images in a dream. When Christ Jesus returns, your love
for spiritual darkness will be no more and you will be fully and completely woken
from your spiritual slumber. All of those earthly and temporal things will be
exposed by the same eternal and glorious light that will shine your pathway
from the grave and you will see them as the truly fleeting things that they
are; like images in a dream.
And so as
you continue to struggle and toil in this dark world and endure the attacks of
sin and the devil, our Lord calls you to continue looking forward to the day of
the Lord; like Judah heeding the call of Isaiah in the Old Testament lesson may
you keep looking ahead to THE latter day when Christ returns and all things
will be made new. Isaiah’s message to the people of Judah is simple and just as
relevant today for you as it was for the people of Judah in Isaiah’s day; and
the message is “Walk in the promise of the Light of the Lord during these dark
days; the latter days will come.” And those days did come.
Those
latter days began some 700 years after Isaiah wrote those words down, when Jesus-the
Light of the world came down to earth from Heaven above. When Jesus was born
the angels sang “Peace on earth” and so peace came, as Isaiah declared, people streamed from all over, as Isaiah said
they would, to listen to Jesus when He
gave the sermon on the mount.
And Jesus
entered the dark times for you. He entered the despair of this fallen world for
you. Jesus went to the cross, and on the cross He took all of your sin upon
Himself, all of your idolatry, all of the greed and selfishness that you see so
much this time of year; much of which could be seen on Black Friday. He took
your injustice and hatred and jealousies. He took whatever you do to cause the
spiritual darkness of this world and He died for it. And He was placed in a
tomb with a stone rolled in front of it and surrounded by the darkness of sin
and death. But three days later that tomb was empty and the darkness was
shattered, Jesus came walking out and the promise made by God through Isaiah
was kept. The call to walk in the light of the Lord is simply the call to walk
in the light of Christ.
And so
today people around the world worship Jesus, as Isaiah said they would. On any
continent, people attend Sunday services to listen to God’s Word. Preaching and
Bible-studies are carried out in hundreds of different languages and people
want to do what is right. When you come up and partake of the Lord’s Supper and
receive the body and blood of Christ Jesus, the prophecy of Isaiah is
fulfilled.
Of course
we still wait. We are in the latter days, but THE latter day of the Lord when
Christ returns has not yet arrived. We still wait for Isaiah’s prophecy to come
true in all of it’s fullness. We wait for all nations to worship Jesus without
competition or persecution. We wait for swords to become plows, for war to
become the time to feed the hungry. We wait for the Last day when Isaiah’s
prophecy will be completely fulfilled when Jesus returns in all power and
glory. But in the meantime, the dark times in which we find ourselves call for
us to walk in the light. And so we walk in the light of the empty tomb which
promises you that our Lord keeps His promises. So come and worship. Come to the
Lord’s table. Come and hear His Gospel. Come and find peace for the depths of
your soul when you hear of Jesus’ glorious resurrection. Come to the light of
Christ Jesus because dark times call you to walk in the light of the Lord
Jesus.
Amen
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