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Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent – November 27, 2022
Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m a notorious napper. I am especially prone to falling asleep during movies or TV shows. Just this past Monday I took advantage of it being my day off and my son being home from college and we went to a movie together. Even though there were explosions and tires screeching and people yelling on the screen, I guess my breathing started to get really relaxed. It wasn’t a snore, but it may have been a pre-snore. Anyway, it was enough that my son noticed. He turned and looked at me with an expression that said, “Seriously Dad? We’re at an action movie in the middle of the day and you can’t keep awake?”
It happens at home too. I’ll be nestled in next to my wife and start to nod off. If it is a sitcom or one of her baking shows she’ll usually let me sleep, but if it is a movie or a series with a plot she doesn’t want to have to explain to me later, she will elbow me in the ribs to keep me awake. My wife is usually kind and gentle and sweet, but she won’t hesitate to give me a good hard jab to keep me awake if I might miss something important.
My notorious napping can be seen as a metaphor for the spiritual sleepiness we all sometimes fall into. In spite of, or maybe because of, all the things going on all around us – all the noise, all the busyness, all the action – we can start to doze off spiritually. Instead of focusing intently on God, through worship and prayer and the study of God’s Word, we begin to nod off. Instead of paying attention to God’s presence and work in our lives, we find ourselves staring at our eyelids. Instead of following the plot of scripture and God’s will for us, we can begin to drift off into the darkness.
Well, my friends, our God loves us too much to let us doze off. They might feel like sharp jabs, but today through his Word God is waking us up!
First, we hear St. Paul telling us that now is the moment for us to wake from sleep. He encourages us to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, to live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.” He encourages us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, making no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” How’s that for a jab to the ribs?
Sometimes when people are caught up in destructive ways, we say they need to wake up. Sometimes when people are in denial about their situation, we say they need to wake up and smell the coffee. Well, this is part of what St. Paul is saying here. He calls us to take a look at ourselves and see what attitudes or behaviors need to change. He calls us to live honorably, and not in drunkenness and debauchery, quarreling and jealousy.
It is true that we cannot cure ourselves from sin – only Jesus can do that – but we can deal with some of the symptoms. As Martin Luther said, “You can’t stop a bird from flying over your head, but you can stop it from building a nest in your hair.
So comes this jab from the Apostle Paul. “Wake up!” he tells us. Wake up and smell the coffee! Wake up to the reality of your sin! Wake up and live like the new day is coming, because it is!
In our gospel reading we get another jab, this time from Jesus. We hear Jesus talking about the final coming of his kingdom. He clearly says that about that day and hour no one knows. Then he goes on to emphasize the importance of being ready, of staying awake. He says that before the final coming of his kingdom it will be like the days of Noah. People were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. In other words, they were carrying on with their daily lives. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this, except that if you remember the story, the people in Noah’s day were doing all of this while being completely asleep to the reality of God. There was no one who had faith in God except one man, Noah.
This is what it will be like at the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus says. People will be busy with the day-to-day action of their lives, but they will fall asleep to the presence of God. Jesus warns that some will be caught napping and miss the coming kingdom altogether. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming!”
The season of Advent begins today with a couple jabs to wake us up from our spiritual sleepiness. We are being shaken awake today to the coming of Christ.
Advent is, in part, a time for us to prepare ourselves for Christmas. It is a time to spiritually prepare ourselves to celebrate Christ’s coming to us as a baby in a manger. Just as the season of Lent gets us ready to celebrate Easter, the season of Advent prepares us for Christmas. I love all the trappings of secular Christmas – the movies, the music, the lights, the festive atmosphere – but it can very easily be something that lulls us to sleep! It can tempt us to doze off spiritually! It can be a time when people are lured into too much revelry, as St. Paul puts it. Drunkenness is indeed a problem this time of year, which is why DUI patrols kick into high gear about now. Advent is traditionally a time when devotions and prayer practices in the home are renewed and deepened to help keep us awake spiritually, We have worship services on Wednesdays during Advent to help us to not lose the plot of what this season is really all about.
However, Advent isn’t just a preparation for Christmas. It is also a time when we are roused to the reality of Christ’s final coming. When we recite the creeds in worship nearly every Sunday, we say we believe Christ “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” While there is a clear warning in Jesus’ words today about being vigilant, being ready, this is not something that should cause fear. So many unfortunate interpretations of these and other passages have brought so much spiritual anxiety to so many. People have gotten caught up in apocalyptic fantasies and fictions which have them worrying if they will be “left behind.” As theologian Barbara Rossing has written, “Our focus is not supposed to be on worrying about being taken or being left, but rather on the urgent necessity of readiness for Jesus’ return at any moment.” We should not be wide-eyed and awake because we are terrified, but because we are hopeful. This isn’t about anxiety but anticipation.
Christ’s coming is not a fearful thing when you are awake to Christ’s coming to us now, in the present. Our Lord Jesus comes to us today through what Lutheran Christians refer to as the means of grace.
Christ comes to us in the present through Holy Baptism, washing us clean and making us his own. We continue to splash that water on our faces to keep awake to his promises and his presence in our lives.
Christ comes to us in the present through the bread and wine of Holy Communion, where he renews us in his forgiveness and gives us a foretaste of the feast to come. The Lord’s Supper isn’t just a remembrance of the Last Supper, it is also sneak preview of the wedding feast of the Lamb which has no end, when Christ and his people will be joyfully joined together for all eternity.
Christ comes to us in the present through his living Word. This Word comes to us as law, yes. It can come as a jab to the ribs. But this is only so that we would be awake to the gospel, to the good news of his saving love. This Word tells us that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It tells us that Christ will never leave us nor forsake us. It tells us that nothing will snatch us out of the Father’s hands. It tells us that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so, through these means of grace we are given a faith such that we can look to Christ’s coming again not with fear, but with hope. The believing heart looks to Christ’s coming again with joy, with anticipation.
“Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep,” Paul tells us, “For salvation is nearer to us now that when we became believers.”
“Keep awake,” our Lord Jesus tells us.
These jabs to the ribs might startle us, but they are administered in love. Christ’s coming – in the past, in the future, in the present – is near, and he doesn’t want us to miss a thing.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church