“God’s Timing #1: The Future”

Opening Prayer:

Lord Jesus, all time is present to you; help us now, by your Holy Spirit, so to live for you today, that we may have confidence to face the future in the love and care of our Father in Heaven. Amen.

Introduction

A person was trying to understand the nature of God and time and asked him: “God, how long is a million years to you?”  God answered: “A million years is like a minute.” Then the man asked: “God, how much is a million dollars to you?”  And God replied: “A million dollars is like a penny.”  Finally the man asked: “God, could you give me a penny?”  And God replied: “In a minute.”

God’s timing is going to be the overarching theme of our sermons for Advent – the four-week season leading up to Christmas.  The word “Advent” itself comes from the Latin meaning “a coming.’  The collect, or special prayer, for Advent speaks of Christ’s coming in three timings: “…give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility, that on the last day, when he shall come again…” Christ came to us as a human baby to be our Saviour, he will come again in glory to be our Judge, and he comes to us now to be received as our Lord.  So, our sermons are going to be built around the three timings: in three weeks I will be looking at how God’s timing impacts our present; next week, Kara Mandryk will look at God’s timing and the past; and today, we will look at God’s timing and the future.

Today’s passage from chapter 21 of Luke’s gospel assures us of two realities – the second coming of Christ and our need to be on the watch.  “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (verse 27) – “history is going somewhere.”[1] “Be always on the watch” (verse 36) – we need to be prepared for that future.  Today we will unpack those two realities.

History is Going Somewhere

In our circles, Christ’s second coming and the Day of Judgement are not usual subjects for dinner conversation.  In other circles they are, but are often twisted and manipulated beyond biblical recognition.  Advent helps call us back to the true Christian and Biblical perspective of the future.  Our Advent lessons and liturgy help us focus not only on Christ’s first coming at Christmas, but also on his second coming in glory.  The Bible is full of anticipation of Jesus’ return to “judge the living and the dead,” as we assert in the creeds.

In the Old Testament, the time of God’s visitation to judge the earth was seen as a single day. In the New Testament, it is accomplished in two days.  The “righteous branch” foretold by Jeremiah (33:15), sprouting from David’s line, came first, not as judge, but as Saviour.  Sin was judged, but not in us; it was judged on the cross.  “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13).  Now we are in an “in-between time;” we are in a time of grace, a chance for us to decide whether we want to leave our brokenness with Christ at the cross and follow him “in newness of life.”  We are in “the last days” but the “Last Day” itself has not yet arrived.

However, the day will come when Christ returns.  “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.  People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).  These signs are not just disruption of the physical creation but also representative of the world order – remember that “the heavenly bodies” were identified with the gods of the pagan world so they also represent the destinies of the nations.  This is a picture of environmental and economic distress.  After tumultuous signs and events, we will “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (verse 27).  Paul expands on that second coming: “…the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord … on the day he comes” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).  The reality is that history is going somewhere – Christ is coming again and there will be a judgment day.  Jesus declared it, Scripture proclaims it, the Creeds assert it, and our liturgy affirms it.

“What a gloomy topic!” you may say. “Why do we have to talk about this?” Because Jesus and the Scriptures give it so much coverage. Many of us do not like going to the dentist for our annual check up. What will he or she find?  If he probes too deeply, he may find a cavity. What can I do to postpone the appointment?  Does the dentist probe around because he or she has a morbid interest in causing pain for profit?  As the drill is going, we might think so, but in our better moments, we realize that the filling of a minor cavity now prevents the much greater loss (and pain) or having the tooth removed later.  In the same way, Jesus didn’t talk about judgment to scare us, but to deliver us from ultimate destruction. “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17).  Let us now turn to our second great reality of Luke 21, preparing for the future.

Be Prepared for the Future

How do we prepare for the great day when he returns? Will there be a series of skill-testing questions according to popular jokes about St. Peter at the gate?  No.  Jesus tells us “whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live … all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:24-25, 29).

The final judgment will focus on two issues: faith in Christ and what we have done with that faith. We can not get into the discussion of what will happen to those who have never heard of Jesus, but the Bible, while affirming that “all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23), tells us that we will be judged according to the light we have been given (see Romans 2). One issue is clear: Jesus is the only way through which we come to know God and receive his forgiveness. Our response to him and the offer of free pardon through his death and resurrection determines our eternal destiny.

Why is this so? Because we can not save ourselves. We must throw ourselves entirely on the mercy of God, on his love. It is a simple “yes” to Jesus. This “yes” is belief, trust, faith in who he is and what he has done. This is where it all begins, not with any sense of our own worthiness, but in his love for us.

Then our deeds come in. We do not begin with our works, because then we would be panic stricken, rushing around trying to live the perfect life, never sure of whether we will make it or not. Instead, because of our new-found joy in knowing Jesus, we will want to leave aside the old life of self-centredness, and will want to enter into new life in the power of the Spirit. We will want to imitate Jesus, to live the holy life he has freed us to live. Our deeds are important because they are the outward evidence of our inward faith.   Paul summarizes it nicely: “By grace are you saved, through faith, not of works lest anyone should boast. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for a life of good works which he has prepared for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10). We do good not to earn God’s love – we do good because we have received it.

But having come to faith in Christ, how do we then live?  Today’s readings give us three things to do:

1. Be Watchful: In Luke Jesus tells us “Be always on the watch…that you may be able to stand” (verse 36).  It is easy for us Christians not to stand but to bend – we bend to external pressures, we bend to our own weaknesses, we bend to our own busyness.  Jesus elaborates:       “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life” (verse 34).  I thought I knew what “dissipation” was but felt I should check it in the dictionary.  I found the following definitions: “squandering, wasting; excessive devotion to pleasure of the dissolute kind.”  Well, I would say that most of us here wouldn’t usually be involved in dissolute pleasure…but, then, that could be a problem for some…see me afterwards for confession!  However, what most of us might have difficulty with is squandering and wasting.  How well do we use our time, our gifts, and our resources?  Take a personal inventory.  For myself, how much time is valid for spending on computer games?  In terms of my gifts, am I trying to do too much with too many?  What about my money?  Am I using it in the right way; am I giving God his fair share considering my situation in life?  Am I being distracted by “the anxieties of life?”  The antidote is to be watchful and a crucial part of that is to pray – you can not stand alone – you need the Lord and others: “Pray that you may escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand” (verse 36).  Now this “escape” is not to be snatched out of the world – it is to remain standing.  Some have misunderstood Jesus’ comment, “One will be taken and the other left” (Matthew 24:40) to mean that Christians are removed from the scene – when the Bible speaks of being “taken,” it is “taken in judgement.”  The ones who are left are those who have stood firm for Christ in the midst of all the pressures to bend.  Be watchful.

1. Be holy: Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians: “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else…May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones” (l Thessalonians 3:12-13).  A lot of us tend to think of holiness as individual and personal standards of conduct – and those are important – but here Paul shows us that holiness is bound up in our relationships.  These relationships are with fellow believers and those outside our fellowship (“for each other and everyone else”).  As John tells us, “If we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen.  And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another” (1 John 4:20-21).  In the current disruptions in the wider church, I am so   distressed to see a lack of love on all sides.  Here at St. Aidan’s, we must uphold love for one another as paramount as we continue to affirm the truth of God’s word and discern our way forward.  Holiness is shown first of all in our relationships.  But we also see that this is not something we have to do in our own strength – Paul affirms twice, “May the Lord make your love increase…May he strengthen your hearts.”   It is only by the empowering of the Holy Spirit that we can be released from our self-centredness and impurity and be enabled to live out the life of love he has called us to.  Be holy.

1. Be encouraged: In Luke, when Jesus spoke about all the catastrophic signs and events, it was not to scare people, but to encourage the believers. “When all these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). We know that history is going somewhere, that God’s kingdom is going to be established, that his will is going to prevail.  The fact that his “words will never pass away” (verse 33) tells us that when Christ judges the world, it will be clear that we have been in the right by standing for him and not the ways of the world.  Knowing this, we are encouraged to keep on going.    We have life relatively easy, but when you think of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world undergoing great persecution, this is a great encouragement – to know that their ordeal has not been a sign of God’s abandonment of them, but part of the dreadful unfolding of evil in the world which will come under the judgment of Christ when he returns.  Jesus will have the last word – you will be shown to be in the right, evil will be judged.  Be encouraged.

Conclusion

History is going somewhere and we need to be preparing for it.  We do not quake in fear at the prospect of Christ’s return but look forward to it with anticipation because in Christ we have escaped eternal death. In light of his coming, he urges us to be watchful, to be holy, and to be encouraged. All we have spoken of is summed up effectively in the letter to the Hebrews: “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27-28).  This Advent, grasp afresh God’s timing for the future.

Prayer – Collect for Advent 1:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility, that on the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

[1] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible.  The Gospel of Luke. Rev. Ed. (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1975), pg. 261.