Sermon from December 17, 2006
A month ago, I asked what brought you here to public worship. I offered a variety of possible motives: the music, the sermon, your friends, guilt, curiosity, habit, desperation, others in your household imposed their will on you, or a mix of these.

The motives of any human being remind me of a dog kennel, where many canine voices bark and bay to be let out of their cages. No responsible person would open those cages and indiscriminately let those dogs run loose.

I use that comparison to remind us what a mixed affair is the human heart; and we bring that mix into our experience of following Jesus Christ. As in everything else in life that really matters, we have to discipline ourselves or be disciplined, so that the good motives in this spiritual kennel we call our heart can be turned loose.

The New Testament offers a range of good motives, which can transform our lives, if they become dominant enough, long enough. I'd like to talk about one of those motives this morning.

There is an ancient prayer of the church that is used every year during Advent. The opening request of the prayer says this: Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the words of darkness, and put on the armor of light. That sentence comes verbatim from the KJV translation of a verse in the letter to the Romans. Please join me in Romans 13:11-12.

In the Light of Eternity
And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our day of salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Paul did not engage in setting dates for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and he strongly discouraged others from doing that; but at times he seems to have left the strong impression that he expected it to take place during his lifetime. This passage is one of them: our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.

He used that as a motive for Christian conduct. The last line of verse 12 says: So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. In other words, live your life in the light of eternity. Eternity is about to break in permanently on this world; put your house in order so that you live now in a way that is consistent with what is about to happen, when Christ returns.

Right here, we come up against two contemporary responses to the apostle's pastoral advice. I could be wrong, but I think that the first one probably doesn't have much appeal to this congregation. The second response comes closer to home.

The first response appears sporadically, when ill-advised Christians announce a specific date for the Second Coming of Christ. It's been about a dozen years since I have seen this phenomenon. But when it happens, some of the people who believe it immediately charge their credit cards to their limits and stop paying their bills. Their logic seems to be: if the curtain is about to come down on the whole show, then what difference does money make any more?

Of course, if the date-setters are wrong about the Second Coming, there will be massive debts, if not the devil, to pay. More fundamentally, their fury of indulgence belongs to the deeds of darkness rather than the armor of light. They are not putting their house in order so that they live now in a way that is consistent with what things will be like, when Christ comes again.

The second response to Paul's teaching is much more thoughtful and worthy of consideration. I said earlier that in this Romans passage Paul left the strong impression that he expected the Second Coming to take place during his lifetime. 2000 years have passed since he wrote these hopeful words to the Roman believers.

There were skeptics in Paul's day who said, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation" – 2 Peter 3:4. I mean no irreverence when I say that if people thought like that then, it is not hard to see how we would do it two millennia later. I mean no irreverence when I ask how the Second Coming is supposed to motivate us to put our house in order, so that we live now in a way that is consistent with what things will be like, when Christ comes again?

The Power of Hope
If you have questions like this, then I think they are responsible and worthy of serious consideration. Responsible and worthy answers come from one of the three theological virtues that Paul identified in 1 Corinthians 13:13: and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Yes, love is the greatest, but hope is no slouch either.

We all live on hope, as surely as our lungs live on air, and hope always has to do with the future. For example, how would you answer the question, "What are you waiting for?" Your SAT results? Mr. Right? The Girl-of-Your-Dreams? A job? A promotion? Retirement? Lab results?

But these hopes of ours have different time values. If you're waiting for your test results, they may come next week. If you're waiting for a job, it may take months. If you're waiting for the person you will marry, it could be years away. If you're planning for retirement, it could be 40 years away.

Here's the point. What we hope for motivates us to act right now. You may check the mail every day to see if the test results are back. If you're waiting for a job, you will update your resume, return phone calls, and go for interviews. Looking for Mr. Right and the Girl-of-Your-Dreams will motivate you to date, to meet someone on-line, and to find out what your friends think about the person you had lunch with last weekend. 20-somethings authorize money to be taken from their paychecks now and put into their 401-Ks.

Hope always has to do with the future, but it motivates us to act right now. Why shouldn't the Second Coming of Christ work the same way for us Christians? It may be an acquired taste, but it can be acquired. Saving for retirement is definitely an acquired taste for many a 27-year-old, for whom retirement seems impossibly distant, but 27-year-olds do acquire it.

So, how do we acquire this spiritual taste? How can the Second Coming of Christ motivate us to act right now? You are doing it right now. You are taking part in the worship and teaching of this congregation. If the pastors and teachers of BVBC are doing our job, we will all hear about the Second Coming, death, judgment, and the kingdom to come in a consistent and edifying way.

More than 30 years ago, Time Magazine ran a cover story concerning part of the Christian Church. The magazine interviewed a 35-year-old businessman and his wife, both church members. They asked the man, "Why don't you drop out of the church, if you are so dissatisfied with it?"

He answered this way: "I suppose that I haven't dropped out of the church, because ... after hearing so many people say the same thing so many times, I can't quite shake the feeling that they just might be right."

Most of us don't need to be learning new things nearly as much as we need to be reminded of important things we easily forget. If all you fill your mind with is what you see on television or on the Internet, your experience of Christian hope will fade, and its power to affect your life will fade with it. We need not only sound teaching; we also need to hear it and discuss it and live it in company with other believers year in and year out.

Putting On Christ
I wonder when Paul came to terms with the possibility that Christ might not return in his lifetime. There is evidence in his New Testament letters that he did exactly that. Is there evidence that you, like Paul, have kept your faith up to date? Has your understanding of the faith kept pace with your growth in other areas of your life?

You are pretty savvy people. I have listened to you for thirty years talk about scripture, theology, business management, finance, engineering, biotechnology, computer techonlogy, banking, law, medicine, education, and politics. You're smart people. In your area of expertise, what would happened, if you had stopped learning a decade ago? You would be out of the game today, wouldn't you?

One reason Christianity fails to hold the interest of Christian people is that their understanding of Christianity came to a screeching halt, when they left elementary school. Paul's example is a good one for us. He continued to grow in his knowledge of God. He could say here in Romans: The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.

But towards the end of his life, when he wrote Ephesians, there is not a word in the letter about the Second Coming of Christ. What captured his faith and imagination was the mystery of God's will. He said this will is to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment. The mystery of God's will is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

As the hope of Christ's Second Coming faded in their lifetime, the apostles were forced to take another look at the meaning of Jesus Christ for human life and destiny. As a result, the whole Church has a bigger vision of God's redemptive purpose.

So, whether Christ's reappearance occurs the day after tomorrow or the century after next, what awaits us beckons us to live a certain way today. Paul sketches that way of life in memorable terms here in Romans 11:13-14.

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness (think of spring break or the Christmas office party or Super Bowl party), not in sexual immorality and debauchery (think of all the above plus the Internet), not in dissension and jealousy (think of marriages gone bad and partnerships ruined and churches split).

None of that, he says, will have a place in the kingdom of God. If your true home is in the kingdom of God, then let the King be your model. Verse 14: Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. Haven't you ever tried really hard to imitate somebody you deeply admired? That's what this statement is all about. We've done it with the mentors and heroes, who captured our hearts and urged us on to achievements we had never before considered. So, what about Jesus Christ?

Let me challenge you with something. Aspire to moral and spiritual greatness! Our culture glorifies moral and spiritual mediocrity. The call to clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ is a call to aspire to moral and spritual greatness.

If we could love like He loved, hope like He hoped, believe like He believed, and challenge the lies that shape our world like He challenged the lies that shaped His world, we would be in for the ride of our lives. We would also be showing our world something of what the coming kingdom of God will look like.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
In the book The Truth about the Truth, Richard Schweder tells the story of a visitor to Japan who wandered into a department store in Tokyo, at a time when the Japanese had begun to take a great interest in the symbolism of the Christmas season. And what symbol of the Christmas season did the visitor discover prominently on display in the Tokyo department store? Santa Clause nailed to a cross.

I doubt that the department store intended anything offensive by the display. Santa nailed to a cross is more vivid but no more vicious than the secular move to turn Christmas into nothing more than a make or break time for American capitalism.

The stewardship of the true meaning of Christmas rests with the Church. It is our message and our responsibility to proclaim in every way we can that Christmas is about the descent of deity into its unlikely house of DNA and culture and limits and ambiguity.

It is our message and our responsibilty to proclaim in every way we can that the message of Christmas is that our Father in Heaven did not merely watch the road for His prodigal to return, He went to the pigsty to find him. Long after the demise of Santa and capitalism, humanity will find hope in the picture of Almighty God preserved in the story of Christmas.

That is the gospel. Believe it! Believe it! Let no one defraud you of the gospel! Believe it and find the center in which all the disparate pieces of your life can find coherence. Believe it, and be saved from this present evil age. The great prayer of the Church that we consider today focuses our faith and asks for a full realization of our deliverance from this present evil age.

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