Someone has said, “You know it’s going to be a bad day when your horoscope starts with . . . ‘Are you sitting down?’”
You know it’s going to be a bad day when you turn on the news and they are displaying emergency routes out of the city.
You know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up in a hospital in traction and your insurance agent tells you that your accident policy covers falling off the roof, but not hitting the ground.
We might add one more: You know it’s going to be a bad day when your pastor says, “Wake up! Wake Up!” and you’ve barely gotten settled comfortably in your pew.
But that’s what St. Paul is saying to us on this first Sunday in Advent. He writes, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here . . .”
So no slumbering this morning. It is time for us to wake up! Our salvation is at hand.
I enjoyed a description that Dr. David Howeth once wrote of his former pastor, a Baptist pastor named Dr. Harry Roark. Roark, he says, was a real character. He smoked, for one thing, and he let the deacons know from the very beginning of his tenure there that he had no intention of quitting. He loved to play a domino game called forty-two. He enjoyed winning so much that, allegedly, he even cheated every now and then.
What I most enjoyed about Dr. Roark is that he had a horse named Pastoral Calls, which he kept at a church member’s ranch southeast of town. If you called the church office on Wednesday afternoons, his secretary, Louise Greer, would politely let you know that Dr. Roark was not in; he was out on Pastoral Calls. The church members understood exactly what that meant.
Dr. Roark had several other quirks or idiosyncrasies. One of them had to do with his preaching. Dr. Roark seemed to know that his congregation was not always paying close attention to him each Sunday, so when he eventually got to the point of his sermon, he always would preface it by asking the question, “Are you listening?” That was the congregation’s cue they knew it, and he knew it. He would then wait just long enough for them to wake up or stop making out their grocery lists or stop drawing on their bulletins or stop passing notes to their friends to tune in to what he was saying. When Dr. Roark asked the question, “Are you listening?” it was time to be alert and pay attention. “Are you listening?” was Dr. Roark’s “wake up” call to his congregation. (1)
Some people read Paul’s words to wake up in strictly a negative sense. “The world is going to hell on a roller coaster, folks,” some are prone to say, “Wake up before it’s too late.” And certainly there is a time for that.
New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal once wrote a column on the problem of drug addiction in this country. He began his column like this: “It is a familiar nightmare. We have all had it. The train is coming right down the track at somebody you know, and you scream ‘Get out of the way, get out the way!’ But he doesn’t move, and the train comes on and on and you wake up sweating.”
Then he adds these dramatic words, “A drug train is coming, but the people standing on the track simply do not seem able to jump out of the way or even hear the screeching whistle.”
Rosenthal was certainly right on target. The number of people with drug and alcohol addictions in our country and the recurring problems which they bring: crime, domestic violence, wasted lives, etc., are as deadly as an oncoming train. Some of you may already be waking up in the night sweating over someone you love who’s fighting this battle.
Comedian George Carlin was on Imus one time and told of growing up with an Irish father who fought a drinking problem all his life. When George grew up and found his own drinking problem, he went into detox and dried out. He came out proud as a peacock and told his father, “I’ve beaten the drink.”
Carlin said that he never forgot his father’s reply: “George boy, you’re sober, and that’s wonderful. But there’s still the marriage and the kids and the job to deal with. The monkey may be off your back, but the circus is still in town.” (2)
And that’s true. Some people fight that battle every day of their lives. As one A.A. speaker put it, “If you do pick up another drink, don’t worry, someone will come for you. Look for the man dressed in blue, white, or black. That will be the cop, the EMT, or the coroner.”
There are many people who need a wake up call because they are engaging in self-destructive behavior. One day we’re going to wake up to the moral drift in our society concerning sexual behavior and wonder what in the world have we done to our children? What in the world have we done to our marriages? What in the world have we done to the very foundation of our society?
It is amusing to me that we point at gay people and call them a threat to marriage in this land. Friends, we heterosexuals are doing quite well destroying the institution of marriage all by ourselves. When was the last time you saw a depiction of a couple happily and wholesomely entering the state of matrimony on any of our popular television shows? I’m not being judgmental. I pride myself on being a preacher of grace. But I am concerned.
So was St. Paul. Listen to what he says next: “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our 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. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Rome in Paul’s time was not much different than America in our time. People are people. Unless someone is sounding the alarm from time to time, society has a tendency to deteriorate to be pulled down by those forces within our own nature those weaknesses of the flesh with which all of us are familiar. Paul was warning the church at Rome not to hit the snooze button when it came to the pull of destructive pleasures. Isn’t that what we do sometimes? Even with all our good intentions, we are not quite ready to face the morning with all its demands, and so we hit the snooze button.
According to USA Today, more than a third of American adults hit the snooze button every morning an average of three times. Snooziest group? The 25- to 34-year-olds 57 percent of them hit the snooze button daily. Peppiest risers? It’s the seniors. Only 10 percent of Americans over 65 regularly use their snooze button. Maybe that’s because seniors have finally come to the realization of how precious time is. Certainly it is time for us to wake up and to ask ourselves what we can do to make our society a healthier and more wholesome society. A society where families are healthy and strong. A society where everyone’s dignity is affirmed whether they are a part of a traditional family or not. A world where the love of Christ dwells in every heart.
It’s easy, as some do, to read Paul’s words in a negative way, and to hear only his message to wake up to the presence of sin in our world. But we also need to hear his summons to the presence of salvation in this world. Remember he starts off with these words: “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here . . .”
Paul’s emphasis isn’t on the negative at all. It’s on the coming of light into a dark world. It is on preparing the world for Christ’s coming. And this is what Advent is all about. Advent has a two-fold emphasis. It is, of course, that time in the church year leading up to the celebration of Christ’s birth.
One comedian said that he wrapped his Christmas presents early this year, but he used the wrong paper. The paper he used said “Happy Birthday” on it. He said he didn’t want to waste it, so he just wrote “Jesus” on it. (3)
Advent is that time of year when we celebrate Christ’s birth. But it is also a time of waiting the fulfillment of God’s final saving act in Jesus Christ, the Day of Salvation, when earth shall be transformed and the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Christ. And there is nothing negative about that.
Before his death Roger Bush was a radio personality in Australia. He also was a serviceman in World War II. One of Roger’s friends was on an infamous prisoner of war ship from Java. Seventy‑five men were battened down in a hold of an old ship with no bedding or blankets, not enough room for them to lie down, with food being passed down in a slop bucket and bodies being passed up to be dumped into the sea. They were in that hold for three months unable to tell night from day.
Of seventy‑five men that went into the hold, only twenty‑six survived. Then the engines stopped. They had arrived at some port far away. Some soldiers ordered them at bayonet point down the gang‑plank and to a concrete building. The prisoners by this time were disoriented. One said to another: “Do you know what week it is?”
The prisoners didn’t even know what month it was! They were pushed into a concrete cell and their only thought was that they would all die.
Suddenly, they heard on the quiet night air the sound of bells . . . bells they found out later came from a Christian monastery high up in the hills. They looked at each other and threw their arms around each other and wept like children. The bells told them it was Christmas Day. “We knelt and listened to the message of the bells,” said Roger’s friend, “and somehow we found our faith again!” (4)
I hope when you hear bells this Advent season they will remind you of your faith and of your salvation. Or when you see the colored lights or lighted candles. Or the music of Christmas.
Dr. Don Collier tells of visiting his daughter in Seattle, Washington where he attended the Seattle Symphony Holiday Pops concert. This is how he describes the experience:
“It was a little different. There was music of the season, all right, including a Hanukkah song, various solo and dance performances accompanied by flying reindeer, Santa Claus fighting his way down the chimney, and the usual cadre of floating angels and dancing sugar-plum fairies. It was entertaining but hardly inspiring.
“Until,” says Dr. Collier, “quite unexpectedly, familiar words drifted out over the audience accompanied by the melodic sounds from the orchestra.
‘Do you see what I see?’
‘Do you hear what I hear?’
‘Do you know what I know?’”
A very simple carol presented in strikingly simple format. And, suddenly, says Don Collier, “for me it was Christmas! The old, old story presented in an incredibly up-to-date setting. Questions as old as the people of the Middle East and as contemporary as today’s conflicts.
“‘Do you see what I see?’ The star. The light of God illuminating the entire sky as the Almighty becomes incarnate then and now.
“‘Do you hear what I hear?’ The song. The very heavens singing in the gift of divine peace then and now.
“‘Do you know what I know?’ God present in human life life in the helplessness of the infant child and the power of the mighty king then and now.
“And to the people everywhere, the word: ‘Pray for peace, people everywhere. He will bring us goodness and light!’”
“So,” wrote Dr. Don Collier, “Christmas came for me this year in a symphony hall. As the trappings fell silent and still, and the truth sang forth: ‘This child, sleeping in the night, will bring us goodness and light.’” (5)
The key, says St. Paul, to being prepared for God’s salvation is to clothe ourselves with Christ.
Notice what Paul says at the end of this passage: “Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.”
That is a beautiful image to me “Clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Ronald Hall, a Lutheran Church pastor puts it like this: “Perhaps you can recall going out to get a Christmas tree late in the holiday season. Maybe you were too busy or too preoccupied, but the time slipped away. Finally you made it to the tree lot, but there wasn’t much left. You ended up with a scraggly looking tree that wasn’t very straight, but because you refused to pay the big prices they wanted for the pretty trees, that was it. Oh, well, you thought, maybe you could hide the bare spots in the corner and make it do. When the family saw the tree everyone complained about how bad it looked.
“But then you decorated it: the strings of lights, the beautiful balls and angels and the shiny tinsel. Then all the lights were turned out and the tree lights plugged in. ‘Wow!’ Everyone was hushed at the transformation that had taken place. ‘It’s beautiful.’
“God’s grace is like that,” says Pastor Hall. “It picks us up off the discard heap, covers us with the robe of righteousness and presents us spotless before God, magnificent in the splendor of gifts He has given and sparkling with the light that reflects His love.” That’s what it means to be clothed with Christ.
As Dr. Roark would say, “Are you listening?” I’m inviting you this Advent season to fall in love with Christ all over again. To wake up from your slumber and to clothe yourself with Christ that you might discover the joy of your salvation. Paul writes, “The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here . . .” Yes it is. Let the preparation continue.
1. http://www.schreiberumc.org/sermons/08-02-03.pdf.
2. THE J0KESMITH, Volume XXIII, Number 2, Spring, 2006.
3. Demetri Martin, Reader’s Digest.
4. Roger Bush, A Bush Christmas (Rigby, 1980). Cited by Rev. Dr. Gordon Moyes, http://www.wesleymission.org.au/ministry/sermons/011230.html.
5. The Vision, NYAC paper, 12-31-2004, p. 2. Contributed by Dr. John Bardsley.