Advent
1 – Series A (November 27, 2016)
“Wake
Up!” (Romans 13:11-14)
INI
One of life’s most unpleasant moments
is in the morning when the alarm clock goes off, blaring the unhappy
news that it’s time to wake up. There are some people who can just
hop right out of bed. I think for most of us, though – especially
when the weather begins to get colder and the skies get grayer and
darker – it’s hard to get up in the morning after you are told by
your alarm or your spouse or your kids or your dog that it’s time
to wake up. You are groggy, tired, and weak. Wouldn’t you much
rather stay in bed under the nice, warm, comfy pile of blankets and
go back to sleep?
This is true spiritually speaking, too.
Our souls become groggy, tired, and weak and we battle spiritual
carelessness or indifference. We delay confessing our sins to God.
You think to yourself, “What I’m doing is really no big deal.”
But sin is sin, no matter how we try to spin it. Any and all sin
equally condemns us.
That’s why, in today’s Epistle
lesson, St. Paul says that it’s time to “Wake up!” He says,
“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.”
“Wake Up” and recognize the time. As
we enter another Advent season, it’s good to take some time to
recognize the time. The time in which we live is an evil time.
There are temptations all around us. And the world tranquilizes us
with its many pleasures. We get wrapped up in television, movies,
sports, shopping, and travel. There’s nothing necessarily
wrong with these
things, unless they take our eyes off of God’s plan for our lives.
(Thoughts here borrowed
from Stephen Carter, My
Daily Devotion, p
336.)
Therefore, the time in which we live is a
time to be vigilant against temptation. The time in which we live is
a God-given opportunity to repent of our sins, to “wake from [our]
sleep” of carelessness and indifference to God and his Word.
Carelessness and indifference is what the first-century church of
Laodicea struggled with. In Revelation 3, Jesus calls them
“lukewarm,” and therefore he warns, “I will spit you out of my
mouth.” Even worse than spitting out a bland, dishwater-warm
mocha, Jesus threatens to reject those who are spiritually asleep,
those who rationalize disobedience to God’s will in their lives.
So much for that sweet little baby in our Nativity scenes. He means
business when it comes to unbelief. And so, we must never delay
daily confession and repentance.
Paul also says that salvation is “nearer
to us now than when we first believed.” Now, you may be saying to
yourself, “I thought I was already saved. I’m baptized. I
believe in Jesus as my Savior. He died on the cross for my
forgiveness. I faithfully eat and drink his body and blood in the
Holy Supper. Why then is salvation ‘nearer to us now’?”
You ARE
saved now. You ARE
forgiven. This is true. But “salvation” here refers to the day
when our salvation is fully made public on the Last Day when Jesus
visibly returns. It may seem to be a long way off. But with each
passing day, it draws closer. Think about the Advent calendars you
may have in your home. With each little door you open, you know that
the celebration of our Lord’s First Advent is drawing near.
Likewise, with every passing day throughout the year, you know that
our Lord’s Second Advent is drawing near. That day is closer than
the time when you were born. It’s closer than the time you were
born AGAIN.
It’s closer than last year,
and last week, and even yesterday. Every passing moment brings us
closer to that blessed day. As in those early morning hours of the
dawning of a new day, between the hours of darkness and light, the
same goes for the “hour” at hand: “The night is far gone; the
day is at hand.” This present world age of darkness, sin, evil,
and suffering is passing away. The future heavenly age awaits all
believers in Christ … the age of light, holiness, purity, and bliss
in the presence of God’s unhidden glory.
Because that time is so near, it is high
time to “wake up.” It is time to live in constant expectation of
the Second Advent of our Lord and Savior. And it’s time to “cast
off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
What’s one of the first things you do
in the morning when you wake up? You change your clothes. Like
taking off pajamas after you get out of bed, pajamas that have been
dirtied and soiled with the body’s perspiration and odors, we are
urged in our text to “cast off the works of darkness.” Maybe
a better analogy would be to say it’s more
like taking off clothes that have been contaminated with an
infectious disease … sexual sins, drunkenness, quarreling or
causing strife, jealousy, unbridled excess. These are all acts that
come from a heart that says, “I am going to do what I want to do,
when I want to do it, no matter who gets hurt along the way.”
Even though we may not be outwardly
engaged in all these sins mentioned in our text, we need to be
reminded of these other words of St. Paul, “let anyone who thinks
he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Satan loves to
drag Christians into the most shameful of sins in order to disgrace
the Church and her Lord.
On the other hand, quarreling and
jealousy are not normally considered to be shameful sins. Yet Paul
still lists them along with these other sins. Who among us has not
been guilty of these, contributing to strife in our families or
workplace, or being jealous of someone else? These, too, we need to
“cast off.”
After we take off our soiled clothes,
it’s time to put on fresh, clean clothes. “Cast off the works of
darkness and put on the armor of light.” Paul talks about the
armor of God available to Christians in Ephesians 6 and in a more
abbreviated fashion in 1 Thessalonians 5. But he gets right down to
business here and tells us that the armor that we wear is simply
Jesus and his righteousness. Jesus is the embodiment of this armor
of light. In the last verse of our text, Paul says to “put on the
Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its
desires,” that is, the desires of our old sinful nature that are
opposed to God and his will.
You are I were clothed with Jesus and his
victorious death and resurrection in the waters of Baptism. We are
Christ’s men and women from head to toe. Moreover, when we daily
confess our sins to God, we daily clothe ourselves with Christ,
reminding ourselves of God’s promises given to us in Baptism.
Daily we take off our old, soiled, sinful garments in confession and
we put on the fresh, clean, holy clothes of Christ through trusting
in the Father’s promises of life and forgiveness through his Son.
Christmas is approaching, and you may be
thinking about what gifts you will receive. Some of you may be
getting new clothes for Christmas. Have you ever put on a new outfit
and looked at yourself in the mirror, and felt like a new person?
You have a new air of confidence about yourself, a new bounce in your
step. You walk out of the house holding your head high with a new
attitude.
Knowing that we have been clothed with
Christ, we can walk with a renewed will to “walk properly as in the
daytime.” And it’s much more than like having new clothes to
wear and a new attitude because of one’s external appearance. The
Holy Spirit works from the inside and remolds and reshapes us so that
we are enabled to trust the Lord, serve him, and obey him.
Our Savior never thought about how to
gratify himself. Everything he did was for the sake others … for
the sake of you. He became flesh. He lived in humble circumstances.
He endured temptation after temptation. When the disciples fell
asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane the night Jesus was betrayed,
Jesus remained awake and struggled in prayer, knowing where he was
headed. While most of Jerusalem slept, Jesus endured an all-night
trial, with accompanying beatings and mockings. By the time the city
was waking up in the morning, Jesus had already been condemned to
death and endured the pain and suffering of the cross. There he
became the embodiment of our sin, so in him we might become the
righteousness of God. There, Jesus endured God’s wrath so you and
I might know and have God’s priceless love. And though His body
“slept” in the tomb for three days, Jesus “woke up” again on
Easter morning as victor over death and the devil.
That was the sole purpose of his first
Advent. And the call goes out to “Wake Up,” to trust him and to
walk in his light, to be ready for his second Advent.
INI
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