I.N.I.

a sermon to be preached at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Mt. Vernon, NY on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost (8 September 1996) and based on the epistle for the day in the revised common lectionary, Romans 13:8-14

Grace, mercy, and peace be your in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Dear Friends in Christ,

We all have our own ways of reacting to deadlines. Some of us get frantic, scurrying about like a squirrel trying to gather together the last few nibbles and nuts before the winter closes in, before the deadline hits. Some of us have everything so carefully and tightly planned that there is no haste, no rise in blood pressure, unless of course something unforeseen comes up to disrupt our timetable, some roadblock appears, some wrench gets thrown in the works. And some of us perhaps freeze up as a deadline approaches, we get paralyzed by the possibility that maybe things won’t turn out the way we had hoped, we that something won’t go right, or that we won’t be received the way we had hoped .

And these reactions aren’t just to deadlines at work or school or some club or organization we’re in. We can react these ways to the possibility we’ll be late for the beginning of a show, a movie, or a concert. The deadline could be an appointment we’re to keep, or waiting for a delivery or a repair person or someone from the cable company. It seems that everyone has a reaction to an approaching deadline or appointment. We all shift into a different gear when the time draws short.

I.

Our text from Romans today indicates that our time, everybody’s time, is indeed short. It also tells us what our reaction to that can and should be. And it indicates what we can do to go about having that reaction.

Our time is indeed short, when we measure it against God’s timetable for the world. You might ask how that can be. After all, it was close to 2000 years ago that St Paul wrote these words in his letter to the Romans. You might wonder whether he had it wrong. How could the time have been short then, when the end still hasn’t come today? And how can I stand here with any authority and say the time is short now?

We have to look at this in a broader sense comparing our earthly existence with God’s cosmic, universal timetable. His order in the universe is not ours. His clock runs on the pattern where a thousand years is like a day. And it runs on the pattern where a day is like a thousand years. And somehow it does this at the same time. I don’t know how this can be. I can’t explain it. All we know is that God’s time is not like ours. And when Paul writes that “now is the moment for you to wake from sleep,” he means whatever “now” we happen to be in at the moment. He means that every one of our moments is in God’s eternal presence and that they need to be redeemed for the Lord’s use in our wakefulness.

In any event, you all easily understand that–as Paul put it–“salvation is nearer to you now than when you became believers.” No matter how old any of us are, no matter how long ago any of us came to the knowledge of salvation, no matter how many years or months or days ago we were baptized into the fellowship of the saints, no matter how long ago we became believers, salvation is nearer to us now. You understand, of course, that Paul is referring to our final salvation when we are called home to the Lord’s side because in another very real sense we are already saved now. It’s just that it will be brought to completion at the last judgment when the Lord Jesus successfully pleads our case before the throne of the Father.

We are closer today to that moment than we were yesterday. We don’t know the day or the hour of our death, but it is approaching. We could be snapped out of this life at any moment, and that moment is getting closer. It could be an accident, an illness, old age, or an act of violence by a terrorist that relieves us of the burdens of this lifetime. But whatever it is, you all know that as each hour passes, we are 60 minutes closer to that time.

And in another sense, the ticking of the clock–or the whirring of the clock that we’re stuck with in the digital clock age–is relentless. There isn’t anything anyone can do to hold time back. Our only record of that ever happening were miraculous interventions into the natural processes of the universe which God made in Old Testament times. But despite all the wishes of science fiction writers, despite the magic of movie makers, there hasn’t ever been an instance of stopping or moving backward in time that has been caused by humankind. Time marches onward. “The night is far gone. The day is near.”

Why? As a sign of impending judgment, it’s clearly a result of our sin. In all the bustle of the world’s activity, in all the movement toward the end of the world, people often forget that the reason there is an end toward which we look (whether it is ‘look forward to with joy’ as a Christian does, or ‘look out for with fear’ as the unbeliever does) the end is there because of humanity’s rebellion in sin. If humans had not decided to go their own way instead of God’s, then we would still be in the Garden of Eden. We would already be able to stand in God’s direct presence. We would have his hand to hold now.

But that’s not the way it is. The end is coming. We can’t stop its approach. And with the advent of the last day comes the judgment for our sin.

II.

Our best reaction to the approach is indicated by Paul in our text. He suggests that we should “lay aside the works of darkness and live honorably as in the day.” Paul also gives some suggestions on how to do this. He starts off in our text with the thought that we should “owe no one anything except to love one another.” That covers a lot of ground. How much easier our lives would be if we had no consumer and credit card debts. But Paul’s thought really goes much beyond this. He’s thinking about a lot more that the way we owe people money.

Paul also has in mind other obligations we take on ourselves. We often shoulder social obligations in which we find ourselves owing someone a dinner invitation. Or we might feel as though it’s our turn to be the host. And we do someone a favor at work, or help a friend with a project of some kind, it’s not at all uncommon for us to hear ‘I owe you one’ as a thank you. Paul is including these kind of debts in his thought that we should owe no one anything but to love one another. If we live in the world of this kind of love, we actually live out the commands of God toward other people.

Instead of weighty legal obligations that guide and restrict our interactions with other people, the Law becomes a handy guide or perhaps a checklist against which we can measure the extent of our love for our neighbors. By loving them as Christ loves us we find ourselves living honorably with them. We find ourselves acting the positives with and among other people and thereby fulfilling the Law.

There are a series of contrasts in this passage from Romans that help us see the balance here. The night is far gone and the day is near. We should live honorably and not in reveling and drunkenness et cetera. We should lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.

III.

This last one is our key this morning to understanding how we can begin and continue to live honorably as the time draws short. It is the answer to our question of how we can possibly fulfill the Law in the face of an ever approaching judgment day.

We “put on the armor of light,” and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” You and I have no power or motivation on our own to live in this honorable way. We have no power or motivation to live without any debts but the debt of love. It only comes to us when we put on Christ. This really highlights the difference between Christians and non-Christians. We Christians can enter fully into the new way of life because of our intimate connection with the Lord Jesus. Non-Christians do not have this same connection. They do not have the sense of direction that is ours.

When we put on the armor of light, we are protected from the slings and arrows of Satan who would accuse us, tempt us, pull us down to his level. The armor of light both protects us and illuminates our path. With Christ surrounding us, we can radiate love to those around us.

We are prepared for and nourished in this task by the Sacraments. Our Baptism has washed us clean so that we can live the life Christ prepared for us. The Holy Supper feeds us during our new life so that we have the strength to carry out His plans for us.

A Christian who is baptized and fed with the Lord’s Supper, who is living honorably among other people, a Christian will lay aside the works of darkness. Sure, there will be slips into sin. There will be times when we succumb to the temptations of the evil one. But since we have been set on the narrow path to salvation, our course is set for us.

We will not live in reveling and drunkenness. We will not live in debauchery and licentiousness. We will not live in quarreling and jealousy. These things are marks of those outside the fellowship of the redeemed. Habits of living such as these are ones that cannot be our habits. The power of the Holy Spirit in us is what can and does keep us living honorably. And remember that this power filled us when we were baptized. It is reinforced when we commune.

Conc.

Knowing and living this new life in Christ just might change the way we react when a concert is about to start and we’re still parking the car 5 blocks away. It just might stop us from getting anxious when a birthday is approaching and we still haven’t bought the present we need to get. It can change the way we feel as other deadlines approach.

What will change, what has changed, is the way we face the approaching deadline of the end of our lives and the coming of the final judgment day. We face them with confidence. We face them knowing that Christ has died for us, that we have been declared righteous before God. We face them knowing that we are living honorably among other people, owing them nothing but the debt of love.

Our love for other people fulfills our duties toward them under the 10 commandments, under God’s Law. It mirrors the way God’s love for us in Christ fulfilled His own Law as it applied to us. Our love, fueled and powered by God himself, helps us prepare for and face that most important deadline we all face.

AMEN

And may the peace of God that passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.