Are We Ready?

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are Romans 13:8-14.

            In the month of December, we celebrate the season of Advent.  We light advent candles, we do special readings, we decorate the church, we do all kinds of things, as we prepare for Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of Christ.

            And maybe you’re thinking, why is he talking about Advent?  This is Lent.  This is the time of preparation for Easter, not for Christmas.  What does Advent have to do with Easter?      

            Well, when you think about it, every time of year should be Advent.  Every Sunday should be a Sunday of Advent.  Because after all, what does that word “advent” mean?  It means the arrival of something or someone.  Not just any something or someone, of course.  Something or someone really important or special.  And if you think about it, that’s what we’re doing every Sunday, right?  Every Sunday, and in fact every Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and every other day, we are waiting for the second coming of Christ.

            In the official church season of Advent, of course, we do all kinds of things to get ready for the celebration of the birth of Christ.  We decorate our sanctuary.  We bring out the Advent hymns, the ones we only sing at that time of year. Then we bring out the Christmas hymns.  We plan our Christmas Eve services.  And in our personal lives, we decorating our homes and buy presents and plan family gatherings and Christmas parties and all sorts of things.  And a lot of us get really excited about all that.  We pull out all the stops to get ready to the coming of Christ.

            But what about the second coming of Christ?  What are we doing to get ready for that?

            I would suggest that, for most of us, the answer is “not much”.  And I include myself in that number.  I cannot honestly say that I’m doing much of anything to prepare for the second coming of Christ.

And maybe you’re thinking, well, why do we have to do anything?  After all, we’re told that we’re saved by our faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  Our salvation comes from faith, not from what we do.  So, if I have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, I should not have to do anything to get ready for the second coming of Christ.

            Well, maybe.  But let’s look at what Paul says in our reading from Romans for today.  Now, Paul would’ve agreed that we are saved by faith in Christ and by nothing else.  In fact, earlier in Paul’s letter to the Romans, he writes at length about how it is not our actions, but our faith from which we get salvation.  But he also says that our faith is revealed by our actions.   

            Paul uses the example of Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his own son, Isaac, to God if that was what God wanted.  Maybe you remember that story--Abraham and his wife, Sarah, had been praying for God to give them children, but they remained childless for many years.  Finally, God gave them a son, Isaac.  But then, God told Abraham to go and sacrifice his son--to kill him.  And Abraham was willing to do it.  It was only at the last minute, when God saw that Abraham really would go through with it, that God called it off and saved Isaac.  

The point is that it was not the act of sacrifice of Isaac that was going to please God--it was the faith of Abraham that was behind it.  But at the same time, Abraham would not have been prepared to undertake that action if he had not had faith.  The two go hand in hand.

And so, when we say we are saved by our faith and not by our actions, that’s true.  But our actions reveal our faith.  If our actions don’t show that we have faith, then our faith is at best suspect.

So, I ask again:  what are we doing to get ready for the second coming of Christ?  In what way do our actions reveal our faith in Jesus as the Savior?

Now, I want to make clear that I don’t believe that the answer is “nothing”.  I don’t believe that there are no ways in which our actions reveal our faith in Jesus.  And in fact, this is not a question I can answer anyway.  Each of us needs to look at our lives and provide our own answer.  And it may not be an answer we can come up with right away.  We probably should take some time and really think about it.  And pray about it, too.  Because, ultimately, what we think the answer is does not matter.  What matters is what God thinks the answer is.  But I can tell you this much--the time to start working on this is now.

We don’t know when the second coming of Christ will be, of course.  And in that way, we’re in the same situation as the vast majority of people when Christ came the first time.  There was a very small, select group who knew what was going on.  Mary and Joseph, of course.  Mary’s cousin Elizabeth.  Eventually the shepherds and the wise men.  But that’s about it.  

Now, the rest of the people--at least, the rest of the Jewish people--knew the Messiah was going to come.  There had been prophecies of it for hundreds of years.  And if you look at what most of the people at that time were doing to get ready for the Messiah’s coming, the answer again would probably be, “Not much.”  Yes, there were people who were attending the synagogue or the temple regularly.  And there were people who said they believed in God.  But to what extent was their faith revealed by their actions?  What were they doing to get ready for the coming of the Messiah?

Again, I’m not suggesting that the answer for everybody was “nothing”.  I’m sure there were some people whose faith was certainly revealed by their actions.  And again, my answer to the question does not really matter anyway.  It’s God’s answer that matters.

But I suspect there were a lot of people who were not too concerned about the coming of the Messiah.  Yes, they knew the prophecies.  They knew he would come sometime.  But it had been hundreds of years, and nothing much had happened.  And so, while they claimed to believe in the Messiah’s coming, that belief did not really affect their lives to any significant extent.

That’s why Paul’s words that we read today are so important.  Understand the present time.  The hour has come for us to wake up.  Our salvation is nearer than ever.  The night is nearly over.  The day is almost here.

Do I know when it’s coming?  No.  You’ve heard me say it could be ten million years from now.  But it also could be ten years from now.  It could be ten months from now.  It could be ten days from now.  We don’t know.  That’s why it’s important that we do what we can to be ready for whenever that day comes.

What can we do?  Paul tells us.  Love our neighbors as ourselves.  Put aside the deeds of darkness.  Behave decently.  Live in a way that we don’t worry about whether people know what we’re doing.  Clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.

It sounds simple.  And in a lot of ways, it is simple.  Sometimes it can get complicated, though.  And you know why?  Most of the time, if it gets complicated, it’s because we’ve complicated it.  And usually, we’ve complicated it because we’re trying to come up with a way to justify doing what we know we should not do or justify not doing what we know we should do.

So how do we uncomplicate it?  By clothing ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.  And the best way I know of to do that is to stay close to Jesus, to try to feel the Lord’s presence with us.  And the best way I know of to do that is through prayer.

I don’t know how many of us pray regularly.  I know some of us do.  I hope all of us do, and maybe we all do.  But I’m not talking here about a quick prayer before a meal or at bedtime.  Those are good things to do, don’t get me wrong.  But if we really want to stay close to Jesus, if we really want to feel God’s Holy Spirit with us, if we really want to clothe ourselves with the Lord, we need to take some time.

At least, that’s how it works for me.  If I have not spent enough time in prayer, I feel it.  I feel it in my attitude.  I feel it in my emotions.  And it shows up in my actions.  I’m not as close to the Lord as I should be.  And it’s not the Lord who drifted away.  It’s me.  And the only way I can get back is to spend that time in prayer again.  Maybe that’s true for you, too.

The calendar says this is the season of Lent.  And Lent is an important time, no doubt about it.  But for the Christian, every Sunday is a Sunday of Advent, too.  We are waiting for the second coming of Christ.  We don’t know when it will come.  But if we pray, if we stay close to God, if we clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, we’ll be ready.  And we will able to celebrate that second coming even more than we celebrate the anniversary of the first coming.