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Sermon for Sunday, November 29, 2009

Presents from the Presence: Readiness”

Luke 21:25-36

Advent is the beginning of the church year. January 1 is the beginning of a new calendar year, but Advent hails the beginning of the church year. The scriptures throughout this season are in Wil Willimon’s words that “speak of a God who steps up, steps in and interrupts the flow of human history.”  (Pulpit Resource)  And you can be guaranteed that every year on the first Sunday of the Advent season the word is basically the same, “watch out, stay awake, the end is near!”  Merry Christmas to me.

If you are one of those who knows about the lectionary, a three year cycle that carries the church through the scriptures, you will know and it certainly is basically true with us on this first Sunday of Advent that the scripture will be Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 and then start it all over again. One year Matthew warns us, “Two will be in the field, one will be taken and one will be left…Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” The next year it is Mark’s turn:  “About that day and hour no one knows…Therefore keep awake, beware, stay alert for you do not know when the time will come.”  And then we come to Luke, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with the worries of life, so that day does not catch you unexpectedly, be alert at all times.”  The theme for the first Sunday is always this: be ready, be alert, be ready at all times to meet your God because suddenly, the end of all history is going to be here. Because suddenly the end of your history is going to be here; the end of my history is going to be here. The invitation for you and me today is to be ready; to be ready at all times, to meet God face to face.  Intertwined is the Lord’s return at the end of time. You never know when life will be interrupted and all things change forever.

Now, let’s read the Luke passage.   Luke 21:25-36

It was January 27, 1986. To those of you who were born, do you remember where you were? We were getting ready. The whole nation was getting ready. It was going to be a great day. All eyes were watching the TV. It was going to be one of those all time great moments in our country. A space launching that would exceed all other space travel events. We had school teacher, a woman, an astronaut. It was going to be an exciting day in American history. We were glued to the tv because most of us can recognize historical events. We loved the stories of the people who were going to go out and orbit the earth especially the young teacher. We waited and waited and the countdown began 5,4,3,2.1 and suddenly there was lift off and the rocket shot high into the air, high and high and higher. And suddenly the rocket exploded right before our eyes; our dreams exploded, our hopes exploded, people who had family, friends, exploded right before our eyes. And many of our eyes burst forth with tears. Histories ended.

Suddenly! Like a thief in the night; like a snare that snaps a trap shut.

It happened right after Christmas in South East Asia, December 26, 2004. You were part of it all. It was the second largest recorded earthquake at 9:31 on the Richter Scale. The tsunami waves spread out across the Indian Ocean. We all now know the meaning of the world “tsunami” and that wave rolled silently across that part of the world and 220,000 were left dead in a moment.  People five thousand miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake were killed in the deadly rush of water. People who had not planned for anything but a vacation or just getting by had life snuffed out.

Happens all the time doesn’t it? Snap and life changes forever. Did you hear what I said earlier, ‘suddenly the end of your history is going to be here; the end of my history is going to be here.  The intent of these Advent passages is not to be morbid or fatalistic, but rather to be a call for us to stay ready, live ready, act ready because someday will be the last day of life as we know it.  What does mean is for us to be more alive than we have ever been before?  None of us is ever more fully alive and alert and watchful to the joy and pain of life than when we are fully in touch with the fact that our own life is fragile and brief.

To live each day as though some day is going to be the last day may be the first step that any of us can take in the direction toward which Jesus tugs us every first Sunday of Advent. If we could live that way each day, then we would live each day alert, awake, fully alive to the nudges and tugs and whispers of God.  Readiness is the word.

We’ve got a number of firemen in our church. Perfect example of readiness. Fireman live in sense of readiness. When they are working they do not know when the alarm will go off. It may go off in the middle of the day or shatter the calmness of the night. They may be working on the fire engines perfecting the instrument that helps to put out fires and save lives and snap! They have to go. It is a matter of life and death to go quickly. They must live in a state of readiness.

What are some of the qualities of readiness that I am talking about?

The first is this: to live with the assurance that I am a child of God, that you are a child of God, that if I died today, that if you died today, you would know that we would be with Jesus Christ.  This readiness is a confidence, an assurance, an awareness that God is gracious, that I am a child of God, that God knows my first, middle and last name.  It is all pure grace.

A second quality of this readiness to meet God face to face is to be a person of love. To be a person of love with your nearest and dearest, with your husband and wife, sons or daughters, your moms, your dads, your closest friends, strangers and others in need. If you know that one day will be last day, why live in conflict and anger?

To live as if I am going to meet God face to face tomorrow is not only to avoid doing some negative things, it is doing some positive things. I not only avoid having a fight with my spouse, but do something kind for her today. To have a sense of readiness is to be a person of love.

A third quality of this readiness is to do the job. To do the tasks God has given you and me to do. Have you ever added up the roles that God has given you to do?  I am a husband. I am a father to two sons. I am still a son to my mother. I am a brother to my sister. I am uncle to two nieces and great uncle to three nephews and one niece.  I am a nephew to one living aunt. I am cousin to other cousins.  I am pastor of a great church. I am neighbor to Pat Temple and Henry and Tammy Van Gil.  I am citizen of Ashland, in the state of Virginia in a great country. I like to think I am a friend to people.  I am a member of the human race. I am vice moderator of the Dover Association. 14..

To live with a sense of readiness is to do my many jobs and do them with as much love and integrity as I can. To live in such a way so when I meet God face to face, I will be able to hear him say, “Good job. Good job that you did. To live your life in such a way that God would be proud of the way that you and I are living.

The fourth quality of this sense of readiness is to be loyal to the values of Jesus Christ. To be  loyal to a sense of love, justice, and compassion, to always have a special concern for the poor, hungry, homeless, lonely, sad, those that society refuse to accept.

As a child I was always taught to do and to live so as not to embarrass my family and my faith. My life was to be reflective of the God I professed to serve.  There were those times when the question would be posed, “what would happen if Jesus came and found you in ????” You fill out the blank. I can’t tell you all my sins!  But it was implicated that I would be left behind if I was found in the wrong place doing the wrong thing God would keep on trucking passed me if he came I was reading the wrong literature or with some girl in the dark or ….  I would so embarrass God that He would pass me by.

Now let me say quickly that I no longer believe God is that severe so that if He came back and found me lacking He would leave me behind. Sin is strong, but grace is stronger.  I belong to Him even as a sinner because His grace is stronger than my sin.

It almost seems funny when I think about that now, but there is still that element of truth to my experience. That is, if Jesus did come back today, I still don’t want to be an embarrassment to him by my behaviors.

So who is this scripture written to today? Surely, it must be the older folks, everyone sixty and over, those who get the AARP stuff in the mail, social security folks, those getting ready to die.  I mean, after all, folks in that category think a lot about dying. That is who Matthew, Mark and Luke wrote these for.

Don’t think so. Life changes so quickly. The totality of life moves by so quickly. I look at an infant and then she is two and blink, 13 and then a young adult, married and it goes on. It wasn’t but a blink ago we got a call saying we had a baby boy waiting for us, if we wanted him and now that baby boy is getting married this coming Saturday. If wasn’t long ago when we didn’t think we could have children when all of a sudden another little baby comes into our lives and is now an adult. Blink, snap!

This passage is for all of us because it, life, moves so quickly. Snap I begin school, snap, graduation from high school, snap, college, snap, seminary, snap, Lynchburg, snap, Annandale, snap, married, snap, Lancsaster County, snap a baby boy, snap, Richmond, snap a baby boy, snap Ashland, snap ??? An explosion in the sky and astronauts are gone, snap, an earthquake. Suddenly snap.

Cecil Sherman told a story one time about his wife, Dot. Whenever company was expected, she would say, “I’ve got to get this place in dying condition.”  Get it ready for company. Readiness.   Our lives are a lot like our houses…maybe not in total disarray, but could stand a little clean up, a little more readiness.

A present from the Presence, readiness. It has to be the way to live Advent and life itself.

Let’s begin Advent with prayer:

Lord, for your grace thank you. Give us the courage to live life with readiness so when the snap comes, we can follow you into the future only you can give. Amen.

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