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What Time Is It ? Advent is the time for the return of
Christ. Scripture Readings: Isaiah 2:2-4, Romans 13:11-14 A sermon preached by There was a man sitting at the breakfast table one cold morning in February, just minding his own business, reading the newspaper, when his wife breezed into the kitchen, gave him a hug, and said, “I’ll bet you’ve forgotten what day this is.” He shot back, “I have not. I’ll always remember this day!” Of course, he didn’t have a clue as to what day it really was, so he stuck his face back in the paper and began to rack his brain. Birthday? Anniversary? Men who forget such important days are often seen living in homeless shelters or painting children’s bedrooms. He was in such deep …trouble. All day long the question bugged him: “What is today?” Finally, rather than take any chances, he stopped by the florist on the way home and got his wife some roses. They had Valentine’s candy on display, but he didn’t think it was Valentine’s Day. Just to be safe, he bought a box of candy anyway. When he got home, he walked into the kitchen and held out his gifts and said, “I told you I didn’t forget what today was.” His wife looked at him kind of funny, took the candy and roses and said, “Well, honey, I’ll have to say, this is the most romantic Groundhog’s Day I’ve ever had!” It’s crucial to our well-being to remember the important days in our lives. Do you know what today is? Spiritually speaking, do you know what time it is? Paul sounds the alarm for us this morning with these words: “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 first became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” (Romans 13:11-12a) It’s time to wake up; today is the day of salvation! It’s the season of Advent, time to get ready for the return of Christ. Advent is the four weeks before Christmas, a season to anticipate the celebration of the birth of Jesus. We get ready to hear the great story again—so familiar yet so well-loved. Jesus, born in a manger in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph. Yet this baby was the Son of God. He returns every year as we worship him at Christmas. But we also get ready in Advent for the eventual return of Christ to claim his Kingdom and destroy all evil. We long for that day when he will come in glory and set everything right. We (or the faithful people who are living at that time) will see him coming in the clouds, descending, the Scripture says, as he ascended into heaven. The righteous will rejoice, and the evil will weep when he returns to earth. We want to be ready, at any moment, to see that sight, to meet our Savior. Jesus very clearly told his disciples, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father….Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming….Therefore, you must also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24:36, 42, 44) Are you ready for the return of Christ, for the first time or the second time? Do you realize what time it is? It’s time to prepare our hearts for his coming. It’s time to be ready spiritually for whatever happens. If you live or if you die, are you going to be with God? I wish I could guarantee your future, that every one of you would live to be a hundred and feel good all the way. But I can’t. I think September 11 brought it home again to so many people. You never know what each day will bring. Nobody can guarantee your survival. Even the church can’t; all we can offer is eternal life. So we have to prepare. Tim Wilson, a pastor in Colorado, tells about training for parachute jumping at Fort Benning, Georgia. Shortly before their first jump, the sergeant was explaining what to do in case of a parachute malfunction. The trainees were paying very close attention. He said, “If your main parachute should fail to deploy, don’t panic. Pull the handle of your auxiliary parachute. Should your auxiliary parachute fail to fill with air, don’t panic. Pull it in toward your body, and then vigorously throw it away from yourself. Should your auxiliary chute fail again to deploy, don’t panic. Vigorously repeat this process.” The recruits were about to panic just listening to these instructions. The sergeant paused dramatically and looked intently into their eyes. Then with a slight grin he slowly stated, “Should this also fail, don’t panic. You’ll have the rest of your life to get your parachute to deploy.” You have the rest of your life to get your heart right with God, too. You just have no way of knowing how long it will be before you hit the hard, cold earth. You better get your parachute open! I thought it was interesting that this week, when George Harrison, the former Beatle, died of cancer, one of the quotes that his family shared with the world was this: “Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait.” So how do we prepare our hearts for anything that might happen? Paul tells us: “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.” (Romans 13:12b-14) Put on Christ, like an armor of light, and live honorably. Follow God’s instruction, and you will stand. You will land on your feet. You’ll be ready. Clay Shiver was an outstanding center for the Florida State University football team. He was such a good lineman that he was selected in his senior year, 1995, for a very prestigious honor. He was to be included in Playboy magazine’s pre-season All-America football team. Nominated by sportswriters across America, this recognition is a big deal. But quicker than it took him to snap the football, Clay Shiver declined the honor. He simply said, “No thanks.” A devoted Christian, Clay couldn’t see any good coming from being associated with Playboy. He couldn’t see his mother and grandmother having to buy a magazine to see his picture—and then seeing the other pictures in the magazine! He didn’t want to give any of his friends an excuse to buy that issue. What he did want to do was to make a witness, to be an example, and to use his gifts in an honorable way. He quoted Luke 12:48: “To whom much is given will much be required.” Then he said, “I don’t want to let anyone down, and number one on that list is God.” There is a heart that is prepared for the coming of Christ. Secondly, it’s time to build relationships. Every Advent, Christians have the same struggle. What is this season all about, anyway? Is it the newest toy on the market—X-Box or Game Cube or Dreamcast? Who’s birthday are we celebrating here? Barbie or Elmo or Harry Potter? What is important to remember? If we’re going to be ready for the return of Christ, we have to remember: it’s not about our stuff; it’s about our relationships. The rule is of life not “Whoever dies with the most toys wins”; the winner is the one who lives in relationship with God and others. One of the best movies of the last year to me was “The Family Man.” The story is about a wealthy and ruthless executive named Jack Campbell, who was given a chance on Christmas Eve to see what his life would have been like if he had chosen to sacrifice his career for marriage and a family. In the fantasy, he married his college sweetheart and they had two kids. Instead of a fast-track career in Manhattan, he lived in a New Jersey suburb and managed his father-in-law’s tire business. Finally an opportunity comes along to get back into the game of wheeling and dealing and making lots of money, but it will mean moving his family into New York City. His wife is upset to the point of tears, because all of her dreams are right there in her house and her kids and her community. But finally she stands in front of Jack and says, "If you really need this, I will take our kids out of their school, and I will leave this house I love, and I will go with you. I will do this because I love you, and that relationship is more important than our address. I choose us.” If you want to be ready for the return of Christ, choose relationships over things—toys, power, status, whatever. Choose family. Choose friends. Choose church—to be a part of a community of faith that helps you grow spiritually. Most importantly, choose God. That relationship is the one that gives the rest their meaning, and it’s the only one that will last for all eternity. Finally, Advent is the time to keep the vision. It’s time to keep hope alive. God has given us a picture of a preferred future; it’s called the Kingdom of Heaven. Keep your eyes on that prize! It’s so easy to lose our focus in the midst of all the Christmas rush. The vision is also hard to see when you’re dealing with the difficulties of life. Where is the dream when you have cancer or you lose a job or you lose a loved one? Where is the hope when your world is in chaos? Isaiah had an answer for that. He was a prophet in the midst of a troubled time. The nation was at war. The enemy was strong and seemingly invulnerable. The nation had turned its heart away from God to trust in wealth and politics. Any of this sound familiar? Yet Isaiah had this vision of the mountain of God. On top of the mountain was the house of God, the Temple. People would come from all over the world to hear the teaching of the Lord in his Temple. And when they heard the Word, they would “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4) The tools of war will become tools for puttering around in the garden, because the world will be at peace, and so will God’s people. Can you see that picture? Have you been to that mountaintop? Can you keep that vision of peace no matter what your struggle is? On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached his last sermon at a church in Memphis. For twelve years he had held out a prophetic vision of equal rights for people of all races and non-violent resistance to oppression. The next day he would pay the ultimate price for his witness. That night he closed his sermon with these words: I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I won’t mind. Like anybody else, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord! That’s not just a vision for one particular group of people. That’s a vision for all Americans and for all people of faith. That’s why I’m glad to see the members of Congress calling the nation to prayer on this coming Tuesday. I think it’s a divine miracle that they ever even got the resolution passed. Not only that, but they are going to seal off the Rotunda of the Capitol and exclude all members of the press and the public, and our leaders are going to lift up our nation to God. So even though we can’t see them, and we may not even hear about it on the evening news, we are going to pray with them, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, because they’ll be praying from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. We’ll be praying for more than just God’s protection and his blessing. We’ll be lifting up a picture of a preferred future—a vision of peace, a vision of justice, a vision of one nation under God, indivisible. We need God’s help and his comfort, but God needs our repentance before he can forgive us and heal our land. Dr. James Dobson, who is supporting this prayer meeting through Focus on the Family, said, “As the people of the United States pray…my great desire is that we not only say ‘God save us,’ but that we pray ‘God forgive us,’ that there be a time for repentance and drawing close to the Lord. We’ve strayed from the moral principles that God has given us.”6 We’ll be praying for nothing less than a national revival. That’s what it means to keep the vision. It doesn’t take much to get it started. Robert Bellah, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, has written books and done research on the influence of religion on society. In an interview with Psychology Today, he said, “We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when 2 percent of its people have a new vision.” Two percent is just twenty-four people out of this church. That’s just two Senators and nine Representatives praying in the Rotunda. I believe revival can happen. I believe it’s time. I believe now is one of those pregnant moments in human history when God is giving us an opportunity to bring a new reality to birth. Doesn’t that sound like Advent? It’s time. It’s time for the return of Christ. It’s time for us to return to Christ this Christmas. It’s time for us to return to Christ in our hearts, in our families, in our churches, in our nation. It’s time for Christ to return. Come, Lord Jesus! Amen!
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