The text this evening is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapter 13, verses 11-14:
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Perhaps for many of you, the concept of oversleeping is something that is in the past. However, for me, I am constantly afraid of oversleeping, especially when school is in session. I hate the idea of being late for something. I like the old adage: “If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, don’t even bother showing up.” Unfortunately, I like it so much that it often scares me.
I remember one time in seminary; the new quarter, after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, was just beginning. I had driven back to St. Louis from Cincinnati the night before, and somewhere during those 6 hours, I got sick. Deathly sick. I remember all this vividly. I ended up having hallucinatory dreams through the night about UFOs and dancing turkeys. I was running a high fever. I had even passed out standing up in the bathroom up against the urinal. When I woke up, faced pressed against the cold, impersonal, institutional tile, I realized how sick I was. And yet, what was my first thought? “I have to get into the shower, so I can smell okay for when I get to class.” You see, I had an 8 am class that was meeting for the first time in 30 minutes and I didn’t want to miss it.
My fear of oversleeping, of missing what I was supposed to show up for, kept me going. I went to that class, hooded sweatshirts (yes, plural, sweatshirts) pulled over me, gloves keeping my hands warm, thick socks and boots on my feet, sitting in the back of the classroom. I was miserable. But I didn’t oversleep. I didn’t miss my class. I didn’t miss my appointment.
In the Scripture text today, we hear of the “time.” We hear of an appointment that is coming. Paul says that the time has come for us to wake from sleep. There’s no alarm going off. It’s a general readiness. In the Greek, we’re told of a couple different uses of the word “time.” The first is chronos time. This word, chronos, means a specific time, like an hour, like we’re meeting here tonight starting at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, December 7th in 2011. But, the word that Paul uses here in Romans is not chronos, but kairos. This word, kairos, means an event time, a special time, a meaningful time, but a time that will pass away. In this way, we could say we’re living in the time of post-9/11 or in the time of President Obama’s administration or in the time of Advent.
In Galatians 4:4, we’re told about another such kairos time. Paul says, “When the fullness of time, the fullness of kairos, had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman…” Paul speaks of the first coming of Jesus Christ. When the time, when the kairos, was right, according to God’s plan and will for the entirety of the universe, God the Father sent His Son, Jesus, into the world to be born as an infant, to live righteously, and to die for our sins. That was God’s time, God’s kairos.
And Paul echoes this idea in our text today where he says to us in verse 11, “You know the time, the kairos, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation, your salvation, the day of the Lord’s second coming, is nearer to us now, in this moment, in this chronos, than when we first believed.”
Today, now, right here, our salvation, the day of Judgment, the day of Christ’s return is closer to us than when we first believed, closer to us than 10 seconds ago, closer to us than 10 minutes ago, than 10 years ago. God has in mind a chronological moment in which Christ will return to this earth, the same earth that Jesus was born into and bodily left in His ascension. This is what the Advent season is all about. This is what we’re looking forward to. This is what we as Christians are waiting for.
I assume you’re waiting for Christ’s return. Are you looking for that? Are you ready for it? Perhaps you’ve forgotten that this is going to happen. Perhaps you have forgotten that Jesus Christ is coming back to judge the living and the dead and that you, too, will be judged. Jesus Christ is coming. Are you ready for His arrival? It can happen now… or now… or now… It may happen tomorrow, or next year, or not for a thousand thousand years. How do you know when it’s coming? Are you living like it never will?
What you do is a reflection of what you believe. When I stop at a stop light, it is because I believe that if I don’t, I run a grave risk of hurting myself or, worse, others. When I eat my dinner, it’s because I believe it will make me not hungry and will help me to live and survive. When we sin, when we are selfish, when we ignore the hurt of others, when we don’t help our neighbor, when we cheat, when we gossip, when we have sex outside of marriage, when we lie to others, when we pick at the faults of others ignoring the gigantic faults that we have, when we point out the splinter in another’s eye and disregard the big old 2x4 in our own, this shows that we don’t really believe that Jesus Christ is returning. It, in fact, shows that we don’t believe in a God who demands perfection, it shows we don’t believe in a God who has come to earth for us, it shows we don’t believe in Jesus’ atoning death for us. If we did believe, then we would certainly be living better than we are, wouldn’t we?
WAKE UP!! For Pete’s sake, for your own sake, wake up! Paul tells us that the time to wake up is here! Paul tells us that Jesus is coming back! Paul tells us that Jesus is coming to judge our deeds, to look at our hearts, to see our sin, to condemn sinners, to welcome some into an eternal life, and to send people to an actual, physical, literal Hell from which there is no escape, not ever. There’s no time to change your mind, to repent of your sins, when Jesus will come back. He will come back like a thief in the night, and no one will know when that is until it happens. When Jesus comes back, instantaneously, in an actual moment, all will be immediately judged. You’re either going to Heaven or to Hell. If you’re a sinner, if you reject Christ, you are going to Hell.
Praise be to God that there is not only Hell, but there is eternal life with Christ! God told His people through the Old Testament prophet Zechariah that something amazing will happen on the last day. We’re given the picture of a courtroom. A man stands accused of being an unrighteous, unloving sinner. The accuser is Satan, that murderous and deceitful liar. However, Satan here is telling the truth. You see, you are the man. You are the unrighteous, unloving sinner. And yet, God speaks, and when He does, He does not speak condemnation to you, He condemns Satan! He sends Satan back to the Hell he came from! Instead, the angel of Lord, Christ Himself, stands before you and takes off your sins, takes off your filthy garments and casts them aside. He tells you that your sins are forgiven! Everything you’ve done, not done, thought, said, not said, everything that is sinful is cast away from you like filthy rags! Instead, He gives you beautiful white robes. He puts these new robes on you Himself. These robes, these white robes, they are yours now! They are not just given on the last day, but they are given to you in your baptism, they are laid over your casket in your temporal death, and every time you see us standing here on the altar, you may reminded that these white robes we wear, they are yours. You are washed white in the blood of the Lamb, in the blood of Jesus Christ who died for you on the cross of Calvary.
These white robes, these are the armor of light that Paul speaks about in today’s text. They are white, they are bright, and they are not our light but Christ’s! And this light, like the breaking dawn of the morning, serves to wake us up! We can’t stay asleep when the light is streaming through our eyelids! We can’t stay asleep when the world is moving around us in the darkness and we bear the only light that can be seen! There is no oversleeping here! Our light is Christ. We are wearing Christ, surrounded by Christ. We are washed in Christ, we eat and drink Christ. We show Christ to others, we know that others show Christ to us. Christ is our all in all. It’s time to wake up and see this!
In these robes, we go about our business, we go about our vocations, we are dressed in the righteousness of Christ and we wait for Jesus’ second coming. Paul says this about our waiting, about our daily life in the meantime, ”But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.” That is to say, now, in this kairos time between Jesus’ first coming and His second, we are to live as God’s forgiven children, well-dressed in Christ and wide-awake. You are forgiven. All your sins, everything you do, they are forgiven because you wear Christ, because He has died for you.
There is a story told of a father who had a bad relationship with his son. After a bad argument, the son went off on his own, he ran away. The father immediately went out and began to search for him. Eventually, after failing to find his son, the father took out an ad in the local newspaper. It read, “Dear Junior, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father.” The next day at noon, the father was anxiously waiting for his son to appear. As he looked around, he didn’t see the face he thought he would see, but saw instead 800 “Juniors” who showed up, desperately glad their fathers had forgiven them. The love and forgiveness of one father touched all those who wanted it so badly. All these Juniors wanted that love and forgiveness from their fathers.
And aren’t we the same? What a wonderful gift God gives to us in His love and forgiveness that flows freely from the cross of Christ. All people crave this love and forgiveness. You have it! You wear it! You bear it to the world! The gift is yours! Though you have often and continually strayed from the love of your heavenly Father, He has sought you out and has not rested until you are safely back in His arms. He has made you ready for Christ’s second coming, His second advent, the Day of Judgment. You are awake! You are well-dressed, not in your sins, but in Christ’s righteous blood. You are ready. Stay awake. Amen.
Now may the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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