Here it comes again, the end of another year! How soon it gets here after Christmas! Isn’t it astonishing? Don’t you wish they could throw in another week or two before the end of the year? We need to get over the rush of Christmas before we have to face the year’s end?
I know the Post Office wishes that could be done. Isn’t it particularly cruel that just as soon as they finish hauling mountains of Christmas mail, the Internal Revenue Service dumps multiplied millions of tax forms into the system? That’s cruel! But then, who since Jesus has ever supposed tax collectors have hearts?! I’m sure the Post Office wishes we could delay the end of the year.
At the end of the year we are asked for reports and reckonings of all kinds. Somebody wants to know what has been accomplished during the past twelve months. If you’re working for a business, you probably have to climb the shelves and count things and do an inventory. If you’re in the government, your job may require an annual report; you are supposed to tell your supervisors that you met and exceeded your goals, so that they can get the promotion that you so richly deserve! If you’re a student, there’s that little year-end reckoning called a final exam, where you flatter your professors by telling them what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not. I’ve already asked a couple of our students how their first semester at college has gone, and they’ve said, “I’ll let you know when the grades come in.” The end of the year is a time of reckoning.
Even the church wants reports at the end of the year. Quite a few of you should have received little hints from our church secretary, asking you to write something by next Sunday. Non-fiction is preferred, but in a pinch, she will accept your wildest dreams, as long as they sound halfway spiritual! We are supposed to do a report that tells somebody what we accomplished during this past year. Oh my! Another year, another report. What did we get done?
I
But now just suppose that Almighty God were to look down over the ramparts of heaven and thunder at us, “Well, I see by my calendar that we’ve passed another millennium. I need a report. I need to hear what humanity has been doing. Just what have you accomplished during the last thousand years? I need a report, men and women. Not an annual report, but a millennial report.”
God wants to know what we have done with the last millennium. What could we say?
a
Well, I’m sure we could throw out some very positive things. Lord, since the year 1000, we have learned to travel. We have gone from horses and camels to cars to bullet trains. Why, we’ve even learned to fly. We started out dreaming with Leonardo da Vinci about wings, but went on to the Wright Brothers and then sailed on to the moon and the space shuttle. We think you should be impressed, Lord. And, Lord, since the year 1000, we have learned to communicate. My, my, can we ever communicate! We have gone from laboriously copied manuscripts to moveable type to televisions and computers. We have gone from smoke signals and drums to telegraphs and telephones to the Internet. That’s progress, isn’t it, Lord? We’ve done a lot with the last thousand years.
b
And then, in my little fantasy, I imagine the Lord’s reply. He probes us a little more. “Well, yes, you’ve learned to travel. And you’ve learned to communicate. And a good many other things too. But there seem to be some missing items from your millennial report. I think there are some things you have not yet told me about.”
“What have you learned about love, for example?” “Love, Lord? Were we responsible to learn to love?” “Well,” says the voice from heaven, “I seem to remember giving you some commands about that, not just one thousand years ago, but two thousand, no, make that three thousand years. Have you got love done?”
And we hang our heads and report, “No, Lord. We haven’t. In the last millennium we went from Vikings plundering Britain to Hitler slaughtering six million Jews to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. We didn’t get love done.”
“What about justice, then?” the Lord says. “What can you report about your work with justice?” “Justice. Hmm. Let’s see, Lord, about justice. I guess you already know that we missed out on justice. A thousand years ago we were beset with the divine right of kings, kings who felt that they ruled because You put them there. From that we went on to a land where we said there would be no need of kings, because it would be a land conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal; but we found out that was pretty hollow. So we went from the rights of kings to no need of kings to a man named King who worked for the dignity of all. But we’re not finished with justice yet, Lord. Justice; we’ll get back to you on that.”
“Ah, then”, I seem to hear the Lord saying. “Ah, then, you didn’t finish justice, and you haven’t mastered love. You know, I told you through my prophet Micah that I required of you to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with me. How about that last one? How have we done these last thousand years about getting folks to walk with me and serve me with their whole hearts? Surely you’ve got this one done?!”
“O Lord”. We’re in trouble now, aren’t we? Like a worker getting an annual review from his boss; like a student doing an oral exam with her professor; like accountants giving us the harsh truth, that our upkeep has become our downfall … we stand before Almighty God to finish our millennial report, and we have to tell Him, “Lord, a thousand years ago they went on crusades to conquer the world for Christ, but it was really all about land and money and power, and not really about the good news. And then, a couple of hundred years ago they started sending missionaries and building churches, but we got tired of that. We got tired of all the work of preaching and teaching and giving and sharing. And so, well, Lord, as we start the third millennium, there are lost people all around us. Not just thousands, not even just millions, but billions of lost people. And, Lord, we do know where they are. They are around the world, but they are also in the next block. They are Asians and Africans, Latin Americans and Europeans, but they are also in our families and in our very homes. No, Lord, the report for the last thousand years is not so good. We just didn’t get that many to walk with you.”
II
Brothers and sisters, I am concerned, as we come to the end of another year, indeed the end of another millennium. I am concerned that we are not getting it done. I am concerned that we have are not making our lives count. With each tick of the clock, with each turn of the calendar page, time is running out. And we must make good use of the time. I’m sure that’s what the psalmist had in mind when he cried out,
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
After all, he had already reminded us that a thousand years in God’s sight are like yesterday … God has an eternal perspective that goes beyond what we can see. More than that, that God has a plan for His world. And if we can’t see it from where we are, if the span of our lives is too short or too busy or too troubled, so that we just don’t get the big picture, well, God does. God sees it. God knows where He is going. And God knows where He wants us to go and what He wants us to do. It’s time for an annual report. In fact, it’s time for a millennial report. It’s time to count our days so that we may gain a wise heart.
What are we going to do with our precious lives? One option, of course, is just to keep on keeping on. Just to do what we have to do to get by. One option is just to live each day in the humdrum tedium we lived yesterday. And indeed thousands of people have done exactly that. Thousands, millions, echo Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death … a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” What a bore! What a disaster! Another day, another millennium! I heard some of that in the passage from Ecclesiastes that was read at the beginning of the service:
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no pleasure in them”
Sounds as though the writer of Ecclesiastes has grown old and tired. Sounds as though life holds no more excitement, no more zest. Sounds as though he has lost his sense of the presence and purpose of God. Not much there to teach us how to count our days and gain a wise heart.
Even the psalmist is a little negative. I’m not sure he has everything I want to hear this morning. Even the psalmist, for all his attention to wisdom, is negative:
The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Even for the psalmist, another day, another year, another millennium, it’s all the same. Hard, unpleasant, tough. Even if we get some extra time, it’s still toil and trouble.
Oh, groan, give me a break! Is there any place else we can turn? I don’t want my annual report, my life report, to be that gloomy. Is there another witness?
III
There is. In the witness to our Lord Jesus, there is a new and fresh word. In the New Testament, there is a word that helps us figure out how to make our lives count, for now, for next year, for the next millennium. It comes from Peter.
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise … but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance … What sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness …? … We wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be … at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Peter asks, “What sort of persons ought you to be?” You already know the answer. It is the same answer with which we have struggled throughout all our history. It is the answer we failed to achieve in the last millennium. The prophet Micah’s great word comes right back –do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. But now Peter says it in a fresh way, in a way that challenges and commands my life here at the end of the millennium.
a
What sort of person am I to be? First, one who waits for a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. As we move into the third millennium, I can’t to sit idly by any more. I can’t just be a passive observer of history. I want to make history. I want to be involved with justice. I want to deal with real stuff. I want to pour energy into causes that make a difference right out here on the streets. What sort of person am I to be in this new millennium? I cannot settle for just another day, just another millennium. I have to hear Peter’s word, look for a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
b
What sort of person am I to be? Peter says I am to, “Strive to be at peace”. I’m finding that the older I get, the less interest I have in fighting certain battles. I am not interested any more in the wrong fights. I’m not interested in making an impression about me anymore. You can go to a church where the preacher is more entertaining, the building is more comfortable, the choir is more spectacular, and the members are more prominent. I hear you. But I find that I don’t have time for that. You and I as the church of the living God can no longer afford the luxury of false peace. The kind of person I want to be is no longer one who worries about what people think of me, while the world around me is in pain and suffering. I want to be at peace with my own heart, and that means to live with integrity. I want to touch hurting lives. A few weeks ago I asked you to repeat some sentences with me – I asked you to say, “It’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s about Jesus, and it’s about hurting people.” I feel that very keenly. What sort of person am I to be in this new millennium? I cannot settle for just another day, another millennium. I don’t want to be into church politics. I want to be into human hearts. “Strive to be at peace.”
c
And then Peter says, “regard the patience of the Lord as salvation.” Regard the patience of the Lord as salvation. If you want to make a difference, lead somebody to Christ. If you want to leave a legacy that matters, teach somebody the way of salvation. If you want to do something that will last and last and last, point them to eternal life. Whether you be young or old, whether you have a lifetime ahead of you or only a few years, if you want to make a difference, then share the good news. I’ve been feeling this for a long time; I am personally resolved that in this coming year, not a day shall go by without my having offered a witness to somebody about the love of God in Christ Jesus. Salvation. The times demand it; my spiritual clock calls for it; and the patience of our God, who has let us live through another millennium, requires it. Who knows how much more time there is? Who knows how much more time for me, for you, for this church, for this world? We cannot afford, ho-hum, another year, another millennium. “Regard the patience of the Lord as salvation.”
You’ve heard me tell how I felt when Margaret and I, several years ago, stood in the nave of Winchester Cathedral in England – a place of Christian worship established just before the end of the first millennium. I’ve told you how it impressed me when the guide said to us, “Ladies and gentlemen, in this place, the worship of God has taken place every day, without interruption, for one thousand years.” But that leads me to that old story about the builders of a cathedral – how as they toiled with wood and stone, hauling and hammering and cutting and shaping – how someone asked the workmen what they were doing. One workman said, “I’m making a living for my family. I don’t care what they do with this wood and stone. What I’m doing is securing my own future, paying my bills.” A second workman said, “Why, I’m hauling stone and cutting wood, just as I did yesterday. I’m hauling stone and cutting wood, because that’s the job. And tomorrow, I am sure, I will still be hauling stone and cutting wood. Ho-hum, humdrum, every day the same.” Another day, another dollar, another year, another millennium. But when a third was asked, “what are you doing?” His answer was entirely different. He too was hauling stone and cutting wood. He too was doing today what he had done yesterday and would doubtless do tomorrow. But his perspective was different. He squared his shoulders, and with a sparkle in his eye, answered the question, “I am building a great cathedral, to last a thousand years for the glory of God.”
Another day, another millennium? Ho-hum? I hope not. Because only what you do for Christ will last. I hope some day in heaven to look over the Almighty’s shoulder and read the report of the third millennium. I hope to find out that what you and I did at its start has lasted, because only what you do for Christ will last.
