OT: Isaiah 1:10-20 NT: Luke 12:35-40
Where is God? Is He far… far way? Or is He perhaps closer than we /like\ to think. Hearing the words of Jesus in our scripture today, we learn that indeed HE is not all that far away. Therefore, we must be diligent. We must be prepared. The scripture today tells us that Jesus’ arrival will come at an unexpected time. Luke compares the second coming to a thief coming in the night. We can’t know when. It could be anytime… even during the second or third watch of the night… meaning the middle of the night. Would we be ready if Christ came tonight at… oh… say… 3:30 AM? Just how prepared would we be?
This makes me pose the next logical question. Just how prepared /should\ we be? Jesus answers this question for us in the verse that says we should “gird up our loins”. When this scripture was written, it was the standard to wear long flowing robes. If a person was going to make a journey, especially with any kind of speed, they would have to gather up the fabric and tie it about their waist so their legs could have free movement. To, “gird up our loins”. In other words, we should live our lives as if at any moment, God will become present, and call us to go. The consequences of not being prepared, the consequence of not “girding up our loins” can be compared to the image of a modern day man trying to run in a dress. It’s /\ SCARY /\.
And yet many of us are that unprepared. We do not believe the Master is near. We do not bother to prepare for his coming. Instead we rest easy believing that tomorrow will come just like every other day before it has come. In this relaxed state, we could easily come face to face with Jesus and find ourselves VERY unprepared. Jesus’ point in this parable is that we should be like the servants waiting for the Master’s return. We must be waiting because Jesus is near. Much more than that, God is near. As much as we deny the coming presence of Jesus, even more so we ignore the CURRENT presence of God. God is much closer to us than we often like to believe. Much of our lives will go by without us realizing just HOW near God is to us. We tend to think that he is far away, perhaps on vacation, perhaps trapped in church buildings until the next Sunday rolls around, anywhere… but near.
Believing God is a million miles away, we find it easy to become less faithful, and less prepared. To use the imagery of the parable, we loosen the fabric about our waste. We make ourselves comfortable and relax in the thought that God is not here right now… so we can breath a little easier. However, we must be faithful and diligent in God’s absence because the truth… is that God is NEVER absent. And so we should live our lives as if knowing God is not absent. We should live our lives as if knowing that even now the Master may be at the door.
Being faithful and diligent… as if knowing God is here is not an easy task, because it is so easy for us to convince ourselves that he isn’t here. Our crowded lives and busy days rarely make room for the realization that God is with us. We refuse to let God in, and as a result… we believe that we live our lives apart from God. Sadly, blocking God off from our lives outside the church has carried into our lives inside the church. We come into the sanctuary, and believe that God is even far away from church. I am not saying we do it intentionally, it is just the way we have lived our lives. We sit here, face to face with God, and somehow we are not moved… we are not struck with awe… we check the bulletin… check our watches… and then drift off to what we have planned for the rest of our busy day in the rest of our crowded lives. But, He is here. And yet we can go an entire hour and barely even acknowledging his presence. Suppose if you will, a 20 foot tall giant standing at front of this room. How would you react? Would your actions change at all? Would you be surprised? Afraid? Excited? Confused? Struck with awe? The sad thing is, we have something much more wonderful and much more AWEsome… than a 20 foot tall giant with us today. Yet we don’t react that way to God. We believe Him to be far, far away… and we sit in His presence feeling safe, comfortable, and unmoved.
C.S. Lewis dealt with what it would be like to be in the presence of God in his book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. As some of you may remember, this book is about a group of children who travel to a land with a wicked witch, and a good lion named Aslan who represents Christ. In this passage from Lewis’ book, he describes the tension that rightfully should arise when we come face to face with God.
“Is – is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
Every Sunday, we come face to face with God. We sit in the presence of a Lion who isn’t safe. And yet people can come into the sanctuary and feel nothing, not be moved, not be stirred. We are in the presence of a tremendously powerful God. Would we be able to sit here in His presence feeling so comfortable and unmoved if we knew for a fact He was here, and that he wasn’t safe? Oh yes, God is good, but “ ‘Course he isn’t safe.”
So what is it going to take? How do we begin to see the thing that we have worked so hard to block out? It seems that it takes something dramatic and powerful to shake us from our routines and put us back in touch with God. Some have found God by going out into the mission field. Some have found God by spending years of research in the bible. Some have found God by going to the holy land to tread the ground that Jesus walked. And yet others experience God by coming face to face with the magnitude of nature, our world, or the universe. These are all wonderful ways to get in touch with God, but the reality is we don’t have to go anywhere. We can find God right here and right now. We just need to learn how to see Him. I would like you to look at the cross at the front of the sanctuary. It may appear to be just a simple cross suspended from the ceiling. But at closer observation, looking slightly past the cross, you begin to see two shadows. Put together, we begin to have the image of three crosses… the three crosses of Calvary. At first glance you may not see it… but it is there. Those of you who have been here several years, probably noticed it twenty years ago but haven’t thought about it much since. It has perhaps become familiar, and in some ways lost. And yet it is a rich symbol that has always been here, front and center. At the same time, it is something that could easily be overlooked. We can sit with this powerful image right before our eyes, and not even pay it any attention. So likewise we sometimes treat God. God IS here, just as plainly as the image of the three crosses up front. If we make it a point to look for Him, we will be able to see him, just like we are able to see the image of the three crosses if we look for it.
I believe that even though we try to ignore God, even though we try to block Him out… we inevitably come into contact with Him here. It is the uneasy feeling that some people get by sitting in the very first pew. It is the reason we walk into this room with a somewhat hushed reverence. It is the reason why some people who are struggling deeply with something bottled up inside of them… can barely set foot within the sanctuary without feeling suffocated. We KNOW that He is here, and yet we try to ignore Him. Rather than embracing that uneasy feeling, we move a few pews back, we push God away mentally, or perhaps we even avoid church altogether. We go back to that comfortable mindset believing God isn’t really present, and begin to feel safe, … comfortable, … and unmoved.
And that is how we live our lives. We know at least subconsciously that God is REALLY present. And not just in the sanctuary but also in the world out there as well. But we surround ourselves with comfortable and familiar things that help convince us that God has gone away on vacation, at least until we need him again. And then we hunger to be in his presence… when in fact we already ARE in his presence.
Friends, if you find yourself in a dry and weary place; if you have lost contact with God, know that it doesn’t have to be that way. When you pray here as a group, God hears hundreds of voices in unison and rejoices with you, cries with you, forgives you, and comforts you. When you sing a hymn, the words are not just things that fall to the floor the instant they leave your mouth,… even if that is how we sometimes treat them. The music rises up to the rafters to a God who rejoices in hearing your song. As I stand up here giving the sermon, God is with me blessing my words as he sits with you hopefully blessing your ears, minds, and hearts. So live your lives like the Master is near.
KNOW God is present, and begin to feel the wonderful awe that He is so worthy of.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
