When I was young, I would always beg my parents to let me stay up late on New Year’s Eve so I could “count down” the minutes until the stroke of midnight and the beginning of the New Year. I’d get some snacks and watch TV, and at 11 p.m. our time I’d watch the million or so people in Times Square celebrate as that big ball on top of that building would drop to announce that the New Year was here. Well, actually, the New Year had started in New York – but since we’re an hour behind, I still had to wait another hour for the New Year to begin in Illinois. As hard as I tried, that next hour was always pretty rough. The wait was killing me. Although I wanted to stay awake, my body told me that it was long past bedtime. My eyes would get heavy. And eventually I’d zonk out completely. One year I was actually able to stay awake until midnight, but by then I really didn’t care anymore. January 1st didn’t feel any different than December 31st, and I realized that starting a new year was really no big deal.
As I was starting to think about this evening’s sermon, the thought struck me that other than waiting for the New Year to begin in a few hours, we really don’t like to wait for much of anything. We don’t like to wait because waiting is uncertain. “The wait is killing me,” we say, because even if we absolutely know that something is going to happen, we don’t know when it will happen.
On other occasions we can wait – but don’t want to. No matter whether we’re at the counter at McDonald’s or a table at a nice restaurant, we don’t want to wait for service – we don’t want to wait for our meal. We don’t want to wait in line at the grocery store. When we’re sick, we don’t want to wait when the doctor says that it’s going to be a while before we start feeling better – we want to get well now.
In the six short verses of this evening’s Gospel reading, Jesus gives His disciples and us a lesson on waiting. Specifically, Jesus is talking about His return in glory at the end of time, on judgment day. He begins by telling the disciples to “stay dressed for action.” Many of us grew up with the King James Version, so you may remember that it reads: “Let your loins be girded about.” Either way, Jesus is telling his listeners to be ready to move quickly. In ancient times, men wore long, flowing robes – similar in many ways to the alb that I am wearing tonight – and those robes made it difficult to move quickly. To solve that problem, they wore a belt around their “loins” much like we wear belts today. But while our belts are meant to hold our pants up, men 2,000 years ago wore a belt so that the ends of the robe could be “girded up” – an ancient way of saying that the long ends would be pulled up and tucked into the belt. Men girded up their robes when they worked in the fields or when they travelled, and servants girded up their robes when they were serving meals. When the Lord gave His instructions to the Children of Israel on how to prepare for the Passover in Egypt, the men were told to have their loins girded, their shoes on their feet and their staff in their hands – they were to be ready to move quickly.
“Keep your lamps burning,” Jesus tells the disciples. Here Jesus gives us another powerful image. “Keep your lamps burning” is another way of telling the disciples to be ready for action – to be ready at any hour of the day or night. Although it’s often difficult for us to relate to life 2,000 years ago, we have to remember that people in Jesus’ time didn’t just flip a light switch – they had to maintain their lamps and keep them burning if there was the slightest possibility that they would need those lamps – that they would need the light – during the night, during the hours of darkness. In Matthew 25 we read the parable of the ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom – and when the bridegroom finally came, five of them were not ready because they had run out of oil for their lamps. Only those who had kept their lamps burning – who were prepared – were invited to the feast.
Our text continues, “Be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.” And later, in verse 40, Jesus tells His listeners that they “must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” In Matthew chapter 24, Jesus goes into even more detail about the uncertainty of His return. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” This waiting, my friends in Christ – this uncertainty – has troubled our human minds for 2,000 years. Even though Jesus plainly says that no one – not even Jesus Himself – knows the time of His return to earth, many have actually calculated and announced – always unsuccessfully, of course – the exact time and date of Jesus’ return.
In the early years of the Christian Church, many believers assumed that Jesus would return soon – very soon. They assumed that He would return to earth during their lifetimes. In the church of Thessalonica, false prophets and false preachers had even forged some type of communication, supposedly from St. Paul, saying that Jesus had already returned! When he heard about this, Paul’s response was short and to the point: “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way.”
Over the centuries, the predictions of Christ’s return have come fast and furious – and have always been wrong. And so tonight we wait. We faithfully, patiently wait. Not necessarily for the coming of a new year – but for the coming of Jesus. This wait isn’t “killing us” because we know what will happen. We don’t know when, but that really doesn’t matter because we know – we are absolutely certain – that Jesus will return. We know that even if our earthly lives have ended and our bodies have returned to the dust of the earth, we will be raised from the dead. We know that He will gather all believers – He will gather us – to His side. We know that Jesus will take us and all believers to the eternal feast and the never ending joys of Heaven, the feast that Jesus so beautifully and wonderfully describes in verse 37 of our text: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”
We know this because Jesus tells us so. In John 14 Jesus says: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
No, the wait for Christ’s return isn’t killing us. The weight of sin isn’t killing us. For we have been redeemed. We have been saved. Our sins have been forgiven. When we die – no matter whether it is tonight or countless years in the future – we are ready. If Christ returns in glory while we are still living on this earth, we are ready. That’s the good news, that’s the comfort that Jesus gives to each and every one of us.
But this wait is killing people who have not been brought to faith. The wait is killing them because they bear the weight of sin – the weight that none other than the Son of God could ever bear. This wait iskilling those who do not know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. This wait is killing those who worship pagan gods … it is killing those who have rejected Jesus … it is killing those who refuse to believe that God even exists. It is killing them because they too will face Jesus when He returns in glory – but their sentence will be one of eternal death and damnation. The wait is killing them – unless …
The wait is killing them unless we talk to them about Jesus. The wait is killing them unless we invite them to join us at Church and at Bible study. The wait is killing them unless we support our churches and our pastors and our missionaries who proclaim, in the words of Saint Paul, “nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” We know that we can’t bring them to faith – that’s the work of the Holy Spirit – but we can tell them about the Savior who died for our sins and who died for their sins, too. We can be ready – with our robes girded and our lamps burning – to spread the Gospel, to spread the good news of salvation. So my prayer as we begin this new year is that each of us will share this good news with someone who so desperately needs to hear it. Someone who can’t afford – at the risk of his or her eternal life – to wait any longer.
And now, as we joyfully but patiently await our Savior’s return, may the peace that passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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