The Reverend Richard L. Pearson at one time served the Crescent Park United Methodist Church in Sioux City, Iowa. For several years that church had a living nativity scene.
On one particular night it was Pastor Dick’s job, along with a man who had a pick‑up truck, to get a pregnant ewe, which was bedded down in the parsonage garage, to the church. They went to get her about a half hour before performance time. Due to her delicate condition they carefully lifted her into the bed of the truck, and Dick rode in the back with her.
It was a bitterly cold night and the ewe evidently decided she had other plans. When the truck stopped at a light, she bolted and jumped over the tailgate. She started running down the busy city street away from the church with Dick in hot pursuit.
Passing cars slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting them. People yelled, pointed and laughed; and the ewe and preacher ran on. He finally caught her in a thicket at Briar Cliff College. They reloaded her into the truck and got her into place with two minutes to spare. Dick said all the way to the church, the lines from My Fair Lady kept running through his head: “Kick up a rumpus, but don’t forget the compass, and get me to the church on time.” (1)
I hope your Christmas season will not be quite that hectic. But time is at a premium during the Advent season, isn’t it? Our song could be, “Kick up a rumpus, but don’t forget the compass, and get me to Christmas on time.”
Welcome on this first Sunday in Advent. Many of us think of Advent as a time of getting ready for Christmas. On a practical level it is certainly that. Some of you may get a headache just thinking about all the preparations that must be made over the next few weeks. Lights and trees to put up. Parties to attend. Meals to plan and prepare. Presents to buy and wrap. How can you possibly get it all done?
The season of Advent, however, is about much more than getting ready for Christmas. Advent is the definitive announcement about our future. Advent is the announcement of a time when Christ shall return to establish his kingdom. Advent is a time of preparation for that final triumph over death and darkness. That is why Advent begins with this passage from St. Mark, chapter 13:
“Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” What a dramatic command: “What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
Would you agree that most of us nowadays do not give much thought to Christ’s return? There are some Christians who make Christ’s return their primary preoccupation. They put up signs on the highway and they write books describing in great detail elements of what they call “the Rapture.” But since Christ warned us that no one knows when that day will be, and since Christians have been waiting for 2,000 years, we look at those who are obsessed with this subject as a bit eccentric. And yet, biblically, it is impossible for us to ignore this teaching. History has a direction, and one day Christ will return to reign over all. It is an amazing and wonderful promise about our future. We are in God’s hands. We must take it seriously. We want to be prepared for the day of his coming. What can we learn from the words of our Lord for this day?
Christ paints a picture for us. A man is going away. He puts his servants in charge, each with an assigned task. He tells the one at the door to keep watch. Then Christ turns to his disciples and says, “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back . . .” Now notice his words, “whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn . . .” Interesting.
That very creative Preacher Dr. Tom Long suggests that these four times evening, midnight, when the rooster crows, dawn may have a special meaning related to subsequent events in Mark’s Gospel. (2) Let’s consider them one at a time.
“Therefore,” says the Master, “keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back whether in the evening . . .” As we wait for Christ’s return, what is the significance of evening?
In the very next chapter Mark tells us “when it was evening, Jesus ate his very last meal with his disciples, and tells them, ‘one of you will betray me.’”
Evening is the time of betrayal. Think about that for a moment. What would it mean for you to betray Christ? Here we are in this time of waiting for Christ’s return. Could it be a time of betrayal? For example, would it be a betrayal during this Advent season if we forgot totally about the deeper meaning of Christ’s birth?
Pastor Jeff Strite tells about a man named Robert McGimsey who, on Christmas Eve 1932, attended a midnight church service in New York City. Feeling much inspired, he then headed back to his one-room apartment. As he walked the final blocks, he passed the open doors of private clubs where people were shouting and swearing and singing. Others were so drunk they had passed out on the sidewalk.
He thought to himself, “What a strange way to celebrate the birth of the most perfect Person who ever lived on this earth.” Then he thought to himself, “We seem to have missed the whole significance of [Christ’s] life.”
That night McGimsey wrote some thoughts on the back of an envelope. Those words became the basis of a beautiful Christmas song that goes like this:
“Sweet Little Jesus Boy, they made you be born in a manger
Sweet little Holy Child, we didn’t know who you was.
Didn’t know You’d come to save us, Lord - to take our sins away.
Our eyes was blind, we couldn’t see.
We didn’t know who you was.” (3)
And it’s true. Many who celebrate Christ’s birth have no real understanding of who he was . . . or is. Betrayal comes in many forms, of course. It may mean ignoring the needs of those around us. It may be the focusing of all our energies on the peripherals of this season of the year and not on the principal reason for the season. Maybe betrayal is giving in to the rampant materialism of this season of the year. I read somewhere that the amount of money Americans spend on toys each year exceeds the gross national product of 64 other countries in the world.
“When it was evening, Jesus ate his very last meal with his disciples, and tells them, ‘one of you will betray me.’” That’s the evening a time of betrayal.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight.” What about midnight? Mark continues the story in chapter 14. Immediately after the Last Supper: “They went to a place called Gethsemane . . .”
Do you remember what happened at Gethsemane? Jesus told his disciples to keep watch while he prayed. This was that time of agony for Christ when he prayed that the cup of suffering and death would be taken from him, but still he prayed, “not what I will, but what you will.”
Twice during this time he returned to the disciples and asked them to keep watch, but both times he found all of them, including Simon Peter, asleep. Mark says, about Christ’s disciples, “They did not know what to say to him.”
No wonder they didn’t know what to say. The Master was pouring his heart out on this, the most critical night in his life, and his disciples whom he had told to keep watch had fallen asleep. As someone once put it, “Instead of standing on the promises, they were sleeping on the premises.” And the obvious question is, could that have been us? We are the church of Jesus Christ. He has called us to make a difference in this world. Have we been sleeping on the job?
One time a man went to his doctor and asked if the doctor could help with a snoring problem. The man said, “As soon as I go to sleep, I begin to snore. It happens all the time. What can I do doctor?”
The doctor asked, “Does it bother your wife?”
“Oh,” the man answered, “it disturbs the whole congregation.”
We say of Santa, “He knows when you’ve been sleeping, he knows when you’re awake . . .”
God knows whether we are sleeping as the body of Christ. I read recently about a church in a rather large metropolitan area that was celebrating its 100th anniversary. It had 90 members. Think about that for a moment. Jesus told us to make disciples of all people. If this church had made even one disciple a year, it would certainly have more than 90 members. Actually, the story is worse than it seems. Forty years ago, it had 140 members. What has it been doing? Sleeping would be a generous description.
Advent is a great time to invite a friend to worship with you. It’s time to wake up and go about the calling Christ has given us.
In the evening one betrayed him. At midnight, they were all asleep. “Keep watch,” says Christ, “because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows . . .”
We all know what happened when the rooster crowed, don’t we? We read about it also in Mark 14. At the Last Supper, Jesus says to his disciples, “You will all fall away . . .” Peter protests, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”
It is then that Christ says to Simon Peter, “Tonight before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.”
But Peter insists emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And what happens that night? Simon Peter denies Christ three times. Then he hears a rooster crow. Mark tells us, “And he broke down and wept.”
Have you ever wept because you have done something really stupid? I love the way we see the disciples with all their warts and shortcomings. We don’t talk much about grace at Christmas time, but surely it deserves to be talked about. Children are told to be good because Santa Claus is coming to town. That does no harm, but they need to know that God loves them whether they are bad or good. That’s the Gospel. Jesus loved Simon Peter, but Peter wasn’t perfect, just as you and I are not perfect. When the time of testing came, he faltered, then failed. But that did not mean Christ did not love him and did not mean Christ couldn’t use him. The crowing of the rooster is a time of grace.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.” What a wonderful thing is the coming of dawn.
Mark 16 begins like this: “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?’” When they got to the tomb, they found the stone rolled away and, going inside, they discovered a young man dressed in a white robe. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen.”
Thirty-six hours before this particular dawn the world experienced the darkest hours of human history. The Son of God hung on a cross like a common criminal. But, at dawn, on the Sabbath, the women discovered that his tomb was empty. He was risen as he said.
Have you noticed that we celebrate Advent and Christmas during the darkest days of the year? That’s symbolic. Darkness is humanity’s essential state. However, there is a light that “shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). It is the light of Jesus Christ.
The evening of betrayal, the midnight when the disciples slept, the crowing of the rooster and the grace it represents are all preparation for the dawn of the resurrection. They also represent our situation as we await Christ’s return. This is still an imperfect world. We still live in a world of betrayal, a world in which the church on whom Christ relies is asleep, a world still depending on God’s grace as its only hope. We await the dawn, the return of Christ to dispel the darkness for all time, to set up his kingdom of love and peace and justice for all people. We celebrate Advent during the darkest time of the year. It is not a celebration of darkness, though. It is the celebration of the light that has overcome darkness. It speaks of that day that is to come.
Pastor David Peterson was once deep into preparation for a sermon. His little daughter came where he was working and asked, “Daddy, can we play?”
He answered, “I’m awfully sorry, sweetheart, but I’m right in the middle of preparing this sermon. In about an hour I can play.”
She said, “Okay, when you’re finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great big hug.” He said, “Thank you very much.” She went to the door but then she did a U-turn and came back and gave him an enormous, bone-breaking hug.
David said to her, “Darling, you said you were going to give me a hug after I finished.”
Her big eyes looked up and deep into his, and she answered, “Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to!” (4)
Advent is a reminder of what we have to look forward to. “Be on guard!” says the Master. “Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
1. Richard Pearson, Christmas Tales Revisited. Cited by Dr. Jim Standiford, http://www.fumcsd.org/sermons/sr122406.html.
2. The basic outline for this message is loosely based on a passage in Dr. Tom Long’s book Shepherds and Bathrobes (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 1987).
3. http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/merry-christmas-or-happy-holidays-jeff-strite-sermon-on-christmas-115899.asp?Page=2.
4. Dale Bruner, “Is Jesus Inclusive or Exclusive?” Theology, News, and Notes (October 1999), p. 3. Cited by Jim Parsons, http://www.adventuresinrevland.com/2008/12/john-16-9-19-28-sermon-hoping-for-light.html