"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."
I personally have never received or sent a telegraphed or cabled message across the ocean, but apparently the telegraph and cable companies used to have a certain code which they required for each punctuation mark, and they would use that code for the punctuation marks instead of spelling them out as they do today.
The reason they changed is this - some years ago a woman was touring in Europe and she cabled her husband this message - "Have found wonderful bracelet. Price seventy-five thousand dollars. May I buy it?"
The husband promptly cabled back - "No, price too high." Unfortunately, however, the cable operator missed the signal for the comma when transmitting the message, so the reply which was actually received by the woman in Europe was NO PRICE TOO HIGH, therefore she bought the bracelet.
Well, the husband was quite displeased about this, so he sued the telegraph company and was victorious in the litigation. Ever since that time, the users of Morse code have been very careful to spell out all punctuation marks.
This morning as we celebrate the season in the church year which we call Advent, this story serves to remind us that we too must pay careful attention when it comes to sending and receiving messages, especially messages which help shape and impact the relationship we have with God. We don’t want to leave out a comma, or inadvertently add a semi-colon or make incorrect use of an exclamation point, and in so doing lose part of the message which Advent would try to bring.
And this is a reminder worth paying attention to, because Advent is not always so easy to understand. There are varying themes and truths and messages which wrestle with one another to gain our attention and lay hold of our hearts.
Indeed there is a certain irony in what Advent expects of us - we spend our time looking forward with mounting expectation to a near-future event, the birth of the Christ child, the eruption of the Kingdom of God, the dawn of a new age, and yet these are events which have already occurred at a specific moment in past history, almost 2,000 years before.
It reminds me of the mother who noticed that her 9-year-old son was saying his prayers with more than usual fervor, and when she asked why he was saying his prayers so well tonight, he told her - I’m asking God to put the Mississippi River in Russia because that’s where I said it was on my geography test this morning.
Well, sometimes that’s the way I feel about Advent, and this morning that feeling is intensified by this Scripture passage from the gospel of Matthew because it has its own share of difficulties and ambiguities, we’re just not always sure what to make of this talk in the Bible about Jesus coming once again to earth.
Of course every once in a while a pseudo-prophet will rise to claim the headlines by asserting that they have read the astronomical signs and matched current events with the descriptions in the Gospels, and they know precisely that hour when Jesus will make His return.
But then too these prophets have had to live with a red face when the time came and went without the heavens breaking open and the trumpets blowing and Jesus descending to be with us forever. On the one hand we can only be puzzled by anyone who takes what is reserved for the mind of God alone and turns that secret into false prophecy.
On the other hand, though, this abuse of God’s word can be understood a little bit when you pause to remember that very few of us care for the unknown. We would prefer having all the answers in a neatly wrapped package, and so we look for signs, we hunt for clues to unravel the mysteries of our future.
Therefore it frustrates us that Jesus seems not the least interested in helping us learn the time of that final hour. What he seems to be far more concerned with is the "now" of God’s coming into our lives, how we are living our lives at this present moment.
The Lord of history is the Lord of present and future, as well as past. He still holds the clock in His hands. One day at a time is still the way it goes, and any one day could be the last day.
And so for each of us there comes a sort of "midnight hour," a time when we cannot avoid the coming of Christ in our lives, when none of our rationalizing will hide us, when our old excuses will no longer cover our nakedness, when we must take that breathless look deep within ourselves, be completely honest and come clean.
This is one of the reasons we have to be careful with our punctuation during Advent, because it invites us to take that ultimate step of facing God’s truth about ourselves, of facing what Soren Kierkegaard once wrote of as that midnight hour when all men must unmask.
And not only are we invited to take that step, we are further invited to be ready to take it a moment’s notice - two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
A fable is told about three apprentice devils who were talking with Satan about their plans to destroy all of humanity. The first apprentice suggested that they would succeed by telling people there was no God. Satan rejected that suggestion because he realized that most people knew there was a God and would not be convinced otherwise.
The second apprentice suggested they could succeed by telling people there is no hell, but Satan rejected this suggestion too because he knew that too many people could not be convinced there was no hell.
Finally, the third apprentice said "Let us destroy all of humanity by telling them there is NO HURRY!" The fable concludes that Satan loved that suggestion because he knew that people would believe there was no hurry, and they would destroyed by the thousands.
Our gospel passage this morning reminds us that we must prepare now, that now is the time to get our lives in order, now is the time to reaffirm our love for Christ, that the best way to meet this Second Coming of Jesus is to live every day as though it would be that day.
A woman once asked John Wesley "Supposing that you knew you were to die at 12 o’clock tomorrow night, how would you spend the intervening time?"
Wesley replied, "How Madam? Why just as I intend to spend it now. I should preach this evening at Gloucester and again at five tomorrow morning; after that I should ride to Tewkesbury, preach in the afternoon and meet the society in the evening; I should then repair to friend Martin’s house, who expects to entertain me, converse and pray with the family as usual, retire at 10 o’clock, commend myself to my heavenly Father; lie down to rest and wake up in glory."
Now perhaps we would not knowingly spend our last hours as would John Wesley, nor am I suggesting we should, but I do think we can learn something from the attitude which he had about the lady’s question - he was definitely ready, he felt that should he meet his Maker at any moment, he had nothing to fear - to the contrary, he had something to look forward to.
Of course the obvious question for us, is are we ready? Do we feel prepared to face our midnight hour? Do we have our lives sufficiently in order? What is the state of our spiritual affairs? How fresh is our understanding of the experience of Jesus’ saving grace, how active is our prayer life, how fully have we, at this present moment in eternity, given of our entire selves to God - our minds, hearts, thought, motivations, attitudes, prejudices, and on and on the list could go.
These are questions which are not always easy or pleasant to deal with - but our text from Matthew is quite clear - they must be dealt with, for there will come a time, and we do not know when, that Jesus will meet us face to face. And so in light of this gospel passage, Advent clearly is a time of preparation, a time to think through the ways of our living and ask ourselves these kinds of questions.
You might think of it sort of like that police car that sometimes gets behind you in traffic. You know how it is - you’re pretty much a safe and law-abiding driver anyway, but when that police car shows up in your rear-view mirror, you know that being "pretty much" within the law might not quite cut it.
You instantaneously turn into a model of driving decorum and courtesy, not even coming close to the upper levels of the posted speed limit, suddenly finding that your turn signal does actually work though you haven’t used it for months, why you even go so far as to think about slowing down as you approach a traffic light just to make sure you don’t take a chance on going through a yellow! There’s nothing like those blue lights behind you to make you a safe driver!
In the context of these words of Jesus from the gospel of Matthew, Advent can serve the same purpose. It can serve as a reminder of the fact that just as accountability is a part of being a licensed driver, so too is it a part of being a professing disciple of Jesus Christ. What we do with our lives does matter. How we think, act, speak, these are a part of the fabric of our response to God’s grace, and we will some day face an accounting of our living.
What then does this mean for us on this 14th day of December, 1997? It means that as Christian disciples we are invited to do more than decorate Christmas trees, buy presents and go to parties. It means that in addition to these very worthwhile and exciting endeavors, we are to set aside time for reflection on the nature of our daily living,
set aside time for prayer and worship and Bible reading, set aside time for taking inventory of our lives and making certain we have things in order, so that we will be ready either for the Second Coming of Christ to earth, or the coming of the Christ child afresh in our hearts at Christmas, whichever comes first.
Just as the police officer or the traffic court judge have the responsibility and authority to hold us accountable for our driving, so too does God carry the responsibility and authority to hold us accountable for our living, and to be ready for that accounting, we must take time to prepare.
But there is one very important distinction I need to make at this point, so important that if I fail to make it I will be preaching the worst of heresies, and that distinction is this - unlike the police officer or the traffic court judge, we must remember that when Christ acts as our judge, He does so as the God who has cares for us so much that He has given His life.
The baby in the manger grows up to become the Christ on the cross, the Savior of the all the world, which means that as Christians we have the marvelous knowledge that the One Who Judges Us, Is Also the One Who LOVES US!
We serve a God who though He does judge us and though He does take extremely seriously the ways of our living, He also provides the means for that living to become real and operative in our lives. It is not the case that God wants to come to earth one day and "catch us all out," as the saying goes.
What God would prefer is to return to earth and find all of us living for Him, and He has done so many things to point us in the right direction - we have the Bible for a guide, we have the Holy Spirit for a Comforter and Friend, we have the church to offer teaching, encouragement, and support.
God is not the big police officer in the sky who pulls in behind us and waits and waits and waits for us to do something wrong so He can write us a ticket. The God who comes to us at Christmas, the Jesus who will one day return to earth when we least expect Him - this God loves us, and wants for us the very best which His grace can provide.
So if we are not ready this Advent to meet this God, if we do not have the same confidence to face our midnight hour as did John Wesley, it is not God’s fault, it is ours. We are the ones who refuse to give our lives completely to Him, we are the ones who want to reserve at least partial control for ourselves, we are the ones who are unwilling to trust God’s love enough to let Him shape and mold our hearts.
David Mazel tells about the time he decided to run away from home
"Perhaps every child has thought, at one time or another, of running away from home. Most do not, having the wisdom to get over hurt feelings and stay put in the warmth of their parents’ love. But some actually do run away - I was one of these.
I even snitched my father’s suitcase to pack my things in, my father’s beloved suitcase. It had belonged originally to his great-grandfather ….though small, it was deep and sturdy. Outside it was soft brown leather, and inside, mulberry colored cloth. Many fingers, thimbles, needles, and threads had mended and remended it over the years. Its handle had a lining of genuine fleece, very sweet to hold.
It was night, and snowing heavily, clouds and clouds of snow swirled endlessly ahead, flakes landed in my eyelashes, sticking there and making me blink. I got as far as a hill overlooking railroad tracks, about two blocks from home. A big locomotive pulling a long line of freight cars puffed by.
For a moment I had the notion to run down the hill and hop aboard, go make my brave way in the world alone. But then I thought of my Father, and how in his work he often had to take trains to go places, and how lost he would be without his suitcase. I turned back and headed home.
Halfway there, my father met me. He had followed my footprints in the snow. I stopped before him, feeling foolish and guilty, and holding the suitcase out to him, I said "It’s not mine, it’s yours."
This Advent, there are some of us who have also tried to make our brave way in the world alone, and we are invited to turn back to our Heavenly Father, and hold out to Him our hearts, and say to Him, "It’s not mine, it’s yours."
"Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into."
This Advent, if we will just leave a window unlocked or a back door slightly ajar, perhaps Christ the kidnapper will come and steal our hearts away.
