“Don’t touch that!! Its hot and you’ll burn your hand!” “Don’t eat that! It has been on the ground!” “You better button your jacket up or else you’ll get a cold!” “Look both ways before crossing the street so you don’t get hit by car!” Have you ever told someone these warnings? Have you ever been told these warnings? As a child, my parents and care takers would tell me these warnings although now they seem like common-sense, or at least they should be. As parents or caretakers, we give warnings like these to children because we love and care for them. We give them warnings like these to protect and prevent them from serious harm. We give our children warnings to help guide them on the right path and to help them become cautious and alert. We do it for their good and in order to teach them. Today, on the last Sunday of the Church Year, Jesus gives us a general warning about the end times: Stay awake!
He gives us this warning and others with the same intentions in mind that we have when we give our children warnings. He does it to protect us from spiritual harm and death. He does it to lead us on the right path. He warns us in order to teach us. In a time when we have things like the Pittsburgh Shooter, or Parkland, when we hear threats of terrorism and wars, see Christians being persecuted, and witness all other sort of bad calamities, like the California forest fires, His Words and warnings couldn’t be more relevant if we tried. This morning, let’s listen to what Jesus warns us about this morning.
Last week, the Gospel text talked about some of the signs of the end times. They were things like the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, the emergence of false prophets and christs, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes, and persecutions. Jesus says that these are signs of the end times, and it is on the heels of this that our text starts. Jesus begins by giving us a warning about what the Last Day is like in order to teach us. He says that after the destruction of the temple and after those tribulations, the Last Day will come, and He gives us a brief description of what it is like. He says, “the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.” Stars will fall and the powers of Heaven will tremble.
In the midst of what sounds like the universe collapsing, Jesus says that He will come on the clouds with great power and glory. His glory is the sum of all His attributes: traits like His almighty power and knowing all things. We will see His full divinity revealed when He comes back in glory and in power. It will be quite a sight.
But why does He come back? Why doesn’t He direct events from His throne in Heaven? He comes back to get you! He says that He will send out His angels and will gather His elect, you, His people. Our text doesn’t mention Him coming back to destroy Satan, demons, and the evil angels, or to punish unbelievers. He will do those things but our text focuses on something else. Our text mentions that He comes back to get you, to gather His elect, those whom He has chosen from before the foundation of the world! He will raise your body from the dead or if you are still living, He will take you back to be with Him as all of this chaos and destruction is going on. His coming for us the elect removes all fear of judgment. Will it be a frightening day, you bet! But because of Christ, we have nothing to fear.
Jesus gives us this warning and description about the Last Day, and we see that He does it to teach and comfort us. For as believers, His coming is not a bad thing, but a great thing! We are going to be with Him!
As He finishes His teaching and warning about the Last Day, He finally answers the question that the disciples asked Him all the way back in verse four. They asked, “When will the temple be destroyed?” And like a politician, in verses 28-32, He finally gets around to answering their question, although it is answered in a vague way. Jesus warns us that even though we knew the time frame for the destruction of the temple, we won’t have any idea of the time frame for when He will return. To help illustrate this, He uses the example of the fig tree. When fig trees become tender and begin to sprout leaves, you know that summer is just around the corner. A good example for here would be when you start seeing vendors and their vehicles, more buses and bus stops, parking signs everywhere, people out walking, Snelling a parking lot, the weather hot and muggy, and when Roseville is extra-crowded and has no parking. When you see these things happening, you know that the State Fair is around the corner, or almost finished, even if you didn’t know the date. Jesus says that when the disciples and people would see these false prophets, conflicts, and persecutions, they would know that Jerusalem would soon be destroyed. He said that its destruction would happen within a generation, and a generation was about 40 years. His prophecy came true and Jerusalem was destroyed and leveled by the Romans in 70 A. D.
As He concludes this warning, He says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that date or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Jesus in His human nature does not when He will return. The angels who will help Him have no idea either. Only the Heavenly Father knows when He will have Jesus come back. But Jesus tells us that although the two constant things in human history, the universe and world will pass away, His Word will never pass away. His Word that says you are forgiven and free. His Word that creates and sustains faith. His Word that says He loves and care for you. His Word that says He is your God Who works all things for your good, even the bad things. His Word that promises these promises will endure, even when everything else does not. We see that Jesus uses this warning to guide us to the only thing that will never pass away or perish, Him and His Word. Although we won’t know when He will return, we have the one thing that will last and that we can base our lives on as we wait for Him: the Word.
As we go back to our text, we see Jesus giving us one last warning to keep us from spiritual harm and death. He says, “Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.” To be “awake” as we’ll see is to be active and alive in your faith. It is repenting of your sin and being in a right relationship with Him through faith. [Watching Mia analogy] Keep this is mind as we hear Jesus using another illustration to convey His warning of being “awake” for His coming. He says, “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves homes and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeepers to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.”
Jesus warns us not to be sleeping, which means to ignore the fact that He is coming back. It is disbelieving and doubting that fact and living in a way that reflects it. Jesus does not want to find us living a life like that. But as Christians, we can be guilty of this. For all too often we think that Jesus isn’t coming back anytime soon, or even in our life, and we can reflect that. We can be tempted to think that we can prepare our hearts and change our lives in the future and forget the need to do it today! However, that is dangerous since we don’t know when our last day on earth may be or the Last Day when He will come back. Jesus wants us to stay and be active in our faith. He wants us to be ready and awake.
And to help with that, He has given us tasks to do while He is gone to keep us busy and help us be ready for His return. For we prepare for His coming and stay awake when we faithfully live in the stations and places that God has put us in and when we do the things associated with it. It can be cooking dinner as a spouse, changing a dirty diaper as a parent, changing the waste basket as an employee, helping a sibling with homework, or as a friend praying for another. We stay awake for the end times by telling others about Jesus and by witnessing to others through our actions and words. We prepare for His coming and stay awake by remaining in His Word, the One thing that will endure, and by clinging to Him in faith.
But we see that Jesus is the One that truly prepares us because He has paid the price for our sin. He died for us so that we could be His own and be with Him in paradise. He died for us so that He can make us ready for His coming. For He sends the Holy Spirit to create and sustain faith in us so that we can be ready for His coming and to stay awake. For by faith, Jesus preserves us by His Spirit so that we are ready for His coming, whether it be today, tomorrow, or in the future. In Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear. By faith in Him, we are ready for His coming.
As we look elsewhere in Scripture, we can find more details about the last day and end times. Revelation says that God is making a new Heaven and new Earth. It describes a battle between God and Satan, where the evil one and his army will be defeated. It talks about how we as God’s people will be with Him in paradise, where we will have every tear wiped away from our eyes. We will have new bodies and be with our loved ones in the faith. With this in mind, how can you not stay awake? How can you not heed His warnings which teach us about the last day, comfort us, and direct us to His ever-enduring Word? So, stay awake, for there is work to be done and because God has great things planned coming our way. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
