The text this morning is from the 13th chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel:
“But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Stay awake. Good advice. Good advice if you’re driving through the middle of the night with your family in the car. Caffeinate, caffeinate, caffeinate. Stay awake. Bad advice if your baby keeps waking you up at three o’clock and you can’t really get back to sleep. Of course, the prescription to make it through that day is the same: caffeinate, caffeinate, caffeinate.
But, Jesus doesn’t give you an option here. It’s not good or bad. Stay awake, He says. You must stay awake. You fall asleep, it’s bad news. You could miss His return. Stay awake or miss the show. Stay awake or, like the parable in the text indicates, the Master won’t be happy and pleased with you. Stay awake.
But, that’s hard to do. Really. You ever tried? I remember once trying to do two all-nighters in a row back in college. Huge tests all right in a row, and, of course, like every good student, instead of studying through the semester, reviewing my notes, checking out the highlights in my textbooks, I didn’t study at all and so I had to just try to cram everything in in less than 48 hours. Not really a smart decision. In fact, I got so sleep deprived, I thought running through the snow barefoot in 20 degree weather was a good way to wake myself back up. I didn’t feel my feet for hours. And I didn’t stay awake. I fell asleep too soon, didn’t get all my studying done, and, I can’t remember exactly, but I can tell you those tests weren’t a whole lot of fun.
Stay awake. Now, if you’ve been paying attention this Church year, you’ll remember that this text, this exact text, was the first sermon preached on the first Sunday of Advent last year, 2014. We begin and end in the exact same place. This means it’s important. We are preparing for the Master’s coming. We should always have this in mind, because, of course, we are staying awake for His return.
But, Jesus doesn’t here mean that we are to physically stay awake. If we did that, our bodies would betray us slowly but surely. We’d begin shutting down. The longest anyone has stayed awake is about 11 days. And that was a 17-year old kid in a science fair. Poor guy. But, even for that young man, his body betrayed him, too.
So, what does He mean? Jesus uses His parable to show us a spiritual reality through a physical story. He tells us of a master who goes away on a trip. No one knows when he’s coming back. They didn’t have GPS back then. They didn’t have cell phones. Letters were not as easily gotten from one place to the next like they are today. The master wouldn’t send word as to when he would be back; he’d just come back and expect everything to be in order.
A master has servants. Those servants are expected to do things. And those servants are expected to wait upon the master when he returns, hand and foot, providing all that the master needs. Feet washed? The servants. Robes cleaned? Servants. Horse fed and brushed? Servants. Door opened? Servants. And if the master gets home, and no one is at the gate to let him in, and no one is there to take his horse, and no one is there to clean his feet as he comes into his home, and no one is there to bring him his pajamas, you can imagine that the master isn’t going to have any servants the next day for, in the best case scenario, he’ll fire them all.
The master expects his servants to be about the business they’re supposed to be doing. They should be. And if they’re not, well, they’re wicked and lazy servants, sleeping on the job, doing the work of the dogs. If he finds them sleeping, it’s as good as death. Sleep is death, and not a good death, but a rotting death that leads you to hell. The master expects his servants to stay awake. And the master expects them to work. And the master expects them to be expecting his coming any day.
But, the master has not left them empty handed. After all, what servant is required to dig his own well and supply the master’s house with water? The master provides the water. And what servant is required to harvest his own food for the master to eat? The master provides the food. And what servant is required to buy the master’s nice pajamas? The master provides them. And what servant is required to buy all the horse supplies? The master provides.
And, in fact, by this provision, the master gives the servants the tools to stay awake. “Here are the tools of the trade, use them well and expect me back soon,” he says. And so the servants use what the master has provided, not only for him, but for them for the master provides all that they need for this body and life, too. That way, when he gets home, the servants are happy, fed, ready. They stayed awake.
Here’s what Jesus means: the Master is coming back soon. He’s the Master. He’s your Master, you are His servant. He expects you to be doing work, preparing for His return. Indeed, He’s coming back soon. Are we working to be ready? Are we using the Master’s tools and gifts for His purposes? Are we staying awake?
How do we stay awake? How do we do that? I can’t physically stay up; can I spiritually stay awake? Of course you can. And you do so through the Master’s tools and gifts. Our Lord Jesus Christ gives to you the gifts of His cross. By His crucifixion, His suffering, His bleeding, His dying, He gives to you tools and gifts for you to use to prepare for the Master’s coming. His good death comes to you through His means. It’s what He’s given us to use in this life to take care of ourselves, and to greet Him with. These tools aren’t just to be put up on a shelf somewhere so that they stay in pristine condition for when He returns, but they’re to be used.
I remember when I got my first Bible. I still have it. I was in the second grade and I was told to take care of that Bible as best I could. That didn’t mean, the pastor said, that I should put it on my shelf and dust it off every so often. Who would do that? Instead, taking care of it meant that I would read it, learn it, cherish it, and in using it in that way, I would take care of it, but really it would be taking care of me.
And that’s true of all Jesus’ gifts. The more we use them, the more they take care of us. The more Jesus’ cross comes to us through His means of grace, the more they take care of us. The more we hear and love God’s Word in all of its fullness and truth, the more the Holy Spirit uses it to convict us of our sins and help us turn to Jesus to find the forgiveness He promises in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The more we remember our Baptisms, the more the Holy Spirit kills that Old Adam of our flesh, the one who desires to do sinful things and stays away from the righteousness of God. Yet, the Spirit also raises in us daily the New Adam, who works in God’s righteousness, doing good works of love and service toward our neighbor.
The more we receive the Lord’s Supper, taking into ourselves the crucified and risen body and blood of Jesus Christ for the strengthening of our faith unto life everlasting, even our resurrection, the more we are indeed given strength in soul and body to persevere in the one true faith, once for all delivered to the saints, unto that Last Day, even the Last Day we have heard about today.
When we don’t use these gifts, we begin to live in fear of sleep, and not the good sleep, but the sleep of death that leads us to hell. That’s the sleep of death. That’s not a sleep we want. If we are, as Christians, to sleep, even to talk about sleep, it is a restful sleep, giving us the rest we need until the next day’s work. This is the Christian’s death, the Christian’s sleep in the ground. That is the sleep of life, the sleep that causes us even to stay awake. That is the only way sleep is good for us, spiritually.
So, when all these gifts are used appropriately, regularly, rightly, our faith in Jesus Christ as the only Savior we have and need is awakened, given strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow as we live together in His love. Our deaths are not fearful sleeps, filled with nightmarish dreams, but fitful sleeps, giving us more than the needed rest for what comes next. And what comes next? We all, we servants of Jesus Christ, are expected to greet the Master when He arrives. We are expected to be awake at His return, literally rising up out of our deathly sleeping places, our graves, to greet Him and, by so doing, point out the goodness of His gifts He has given to us.
When we here, today, confess we are sinners, we are using His gifts. When we receive His absolution, we are using His gifts. When we remember our Baptisms, we are using His gifts. When we come to His Table, to eat and to drink, we are using His gifts. And He is pleased, for His servants did exactly what He expected them to do to prepare for His coming.
And that is how we stay awake. How can you sleep in death if you have been saved? How can you sleep in death if you have been justified by faith? How can you sleep in death if you have been forgiven? How can you sleep in death if you have been Baptized? How can you sleep in death if you have been fed? How can you sleep in death if you have been called by His name? You can’t. You won’t. It’s impossible. Because you are saved. You are justified by faith. You are forgiven in the blood of Jesus. You are Baptized. You have eaten and drank at His Table. You are called by the name of Jesus. You are His. You belong to the Master.
Jesus gives you the ways that you may stay awake. He doesn’t demand from you your sleepy time tea. He doesn’t demand you torture yourself. He gives you His gifts, the gifts which flow from His pierced side, so that you can use them, guard them, love them, and be found awake in Him.
So, stay awake. It’s good for you. It’s the best for you. In fact, even though you die, death the only way you may be sure to stay awake, it keeps your body until the day of His coming, when you will see your Jesus when He comes for you. And He is coming. He is coming soon. He is coming to raise you from the dead and bring you into His forever kingdom. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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