“Keep Awake”

Isaiah 60:1-5,19-22

Mark 13:24-37

Today marks the first day of the new season for the Church, but this day starts more than just a new season, it is also the first day of a new year and a new time. The months of ordinary time, with its emphasis on spiritual growth in faith, has now come to the end, and we have once again entered a new time, a new time to return our focus to the in-breaking of God self into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. And what better way to enter this new year, this new time, than with the time of Advent.

But with the start of Advent also comes an abrupt disruption in our business as usual mentality and status quo way of life. Advent points us toward a new way of being and doing, a new way of being and doing that not only trusts God’s faithful promise, but also looks to the day of the full and final in-breaking of the new reality of God’s kingdom when Christ comes again.

I know that this is not what we expect Advent to mean. We are so used to thinking about Advent as the time of preparation for Christmas that to hear about Advent as the time of preparation for the second coming may leave many of us with feelings of awkwardness and confusion. After all, isn’t Advent supposed to be the time during which we await Christmas, the four Sundays before Christmas when we light the advent candles, sing Christmas songs, decorate our homes, and prepare ourselves for Christmas morning? Well, sure Advent certainly comes before Christmas, and it is certainly a time when we begin to prepare ourselves and celebrate the coming of the baby in the manger, but Advent points us beyond just the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. Advent invites us to look beyond ourselves, our busy lives, hectic schedules, and the hustle and bustle of the shopping season, to envision and prepare ourselves for the day that is coming towards us, to the day when God’s time and our time will once again intersect when Christ comes again to make all things new.

Our text for us on this first Sunday of Advent is not a text that you probably expected to hear. It speaks of the end of the world and the coming of the Son of Man, which are not quite the images we think of during the Christmas season. But this text points us to what Advent is all about – time to keep ourselves awake and alert and prepared for Christ’s return.

We are a people who are asleep, not literally mind you, but theologically and spiritually. We have become accustomed to the every day normalcy of life, to the flow of time, and the days and months of the calendar. We go through the motions of everyday life without any expectation of what is coming and who is coming very, very soon. We have become accustomed to our normal routines and practices without being mindful and awake for the approaching age to come, the time when Christ comes again in all his glory.

Maybe that is why our text for this morning is so important for us to hear, because we need a wake up call, a reminder that our hope and expectation is not wrapped up in the Christmas season, but in the reality and promise that God’s time and our time not only intersects now, but will intersect in a dramatic way in the not so distant future when the same Christ, who was born in the manager 2000 years ago, will come again in great power and glory as Lord and Judge. Oh yes, my friends, we are a people who need a wake up call. The past 2000 years have lulled us to sleep, we have lost our sense of urgency and expectation, and we have forgotten our call to be awake and alert as we await the Advent of our Lord.

On Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, millions of people flocked to the stores to take advantage of the numerous early bird specials and store sales. Yet, as fun as this is for some people, it is also a reminder about just how we have distorted what this season is all about. As I watched the news Friday night, I was amazed and alarmed at the video I saw of people storming through the front door of a Wal-Mart trampling over people who had fallen. I was saddened by reports of fights that broke out and pushing and shoving that had happened over certain items that were scarce.

There was something about these events that stirred in me a sense of awareness, that we, as a people, have truly forgotten what this season is really about, that we have become so caught up in the gift buying and commercialization of the Christmas season that we don’t even take time to really think about Advent and why it is so important for us.

We read passages of apocalyptic prophecy such as this one in the Bible, and we hear about events such as the sun being darkened, stars falling from the heavens, the Son of man coming in the clouds, and the elect being gathered up, but we don’t even bat an eye. For our twenty-first century ears, Jesus' words seem to just roll off our tongue without any thought of what is being said. The images that flash through our mind's eye are as commonplace as the numerous visual images we have seen in movies and TV shows. For many of us, the power and relevancy of Jesus' words have been subdued by a contemporary world, if not silenced altogether.

We need to hear texts like the one we read this morning. We need to be reminded again why we celebrate Advent and why Christmas has the meaning it does. We need to be awaked again from our sleep so that we might yet again focus our hearts and minds on the hope that we have as Christians, the hope we have in the promise of Christ’s return. We need to be reminded again that Jesus' words are indeed relevant and contemporary for our lives of faith, that the prophecy of Christ coming in glory may not have been fulfilled in the last two thousand years, but the promise of the Gospel is that Jesus' words will never pass away, they can be depended upon, they will not fail, and the prophecy will soon be fulfilled, maybe even in my life time, maybe even this week, maybe even today, maybe even right now.

And that is why Jesus has called for us to keep awake at all times, that even though we do not know the time of Christ’s return, we do know that he is coming. We do know that Christ’s reign will finally and fully be realized, not in some distant future, but at any moment of time. Whether it be in the evening, at midnight, at dawn, or in the morning, it doesn't matter, for at all times we are to keep awake for Christ's return.

Okay, I've said it several times now, we must keep awake, so what does that mean? Let me first tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean we need to consume ourselves with trying to figure out when Christ will return. There is no secret code or symbol in Jesus' words that if we decipher them we will know when. Our world is already full of people who think they have figured out the end of the world, and our world is already littered with Internet web sites, books, television evangelists, and radio personalities who claim to have a date in mind. Let them spend their time worrying about it, not your time.

So what does it mean to keep awake? It means to keep our eyes focused on the horizon of the world’s future, on the horizon that is God’s kingdom coming towards us, the horizon that marks that time when God will act to make all things right. To keep awake means to live in the expectation of that event, to let the conviction of Christ’s return inform and determine our decisions and actions in this time of waiting, because we know that the one who is coming is the only one who will bring salvation to a lost and broken world.

To keep awake means to keep our eyes focused on what is going on around us at all times. There are too many people today who keep their eyes only on the heavens, so focused on the end of time and the coming of Christ, that they forget to look where they are walking, they forget to have their feet firmly planted on the ground ever mindful of what is going on around them. Keep Awake! Look at where you are walking and what you are doing, do not let opportunities for service in God's kingdom come and go and pass by you unseen and left undone. Life can be full of regrets, but the worst regrets are not the things we wish we could have done, but of the things we should have done. To keep awake means to keep our eyes on those times and places where Christ's reign is already present and among us, where peace and reconciliation and justice is at work in the world, and to engage ourselves in that work, speaking out and taking action through the Spirit of the living Christ in us.

To keep awake means that we do not neglect the times and events for the renewal of life in communion with God. Too many people have become too complacent and comfortable in their faith. Keep awake! Be in communion with God at all times and in all places, especially in the Church. Make communal worship the central act of your life with God. Devote yourself to hearing the word, study it regularly by yourself and with others, so that you will be knowledgeable about God and God’s will and prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have when someone asks you. Commit yourself to join with others in times of fellowship, so that our lives of faith may be strengthened and nurtured, encouraged and built up.

We live in the between times of the first Advent of Christ in the manager and the next Advent of Christ coming in glory, so what are we going to do with this time? Will we spend it as Christ's disciples in every area and time of our lives, or only on Sunday mornings for an hour? Is Christ going to be your Lord and Savior now, or is that something you will confess later? Has the living spiritual presence of Christ already come in glory for you, or will Christ find you asleep when he comes again in his physical glory? To keep awake means to be vigilant and mindful of our duty as Christians, as servants in God's kingdom.

Keep awake! In every waking moment of our lives, we are to be prepared and ready to answer our call as Christ’s loving servants and faithful witnesses. We are to live in such faithful obedience to God's word that nothing can distract us from our appointed responsibilities as Christ's faithful disciples, nor compromise our mission in the world as Christ's faithful servants. To keep awake means to follow and trust Jesus' words. They have not become obsolete for us, they are just as profound and relevant for our lives of faith today as they were to the lives of faith of the first Christians. Let us again regain our sense of urgency this Advent season, and let us live in the hope that Jesus' words for us today will come true. Christ will come again. We will see him coming with the angels in the clouds with great power and glory, and we will be gathered with the rest of his elect from all corners of the world, and there will be justice and there will be peace. This is our hope, this is our faith. Let us keep awake this Advent season and prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord. Amen.