ADVENT I - AWAKE, O SLEEPER !!

ADVENT I

December 2, 2013

Fr. Philip Eberhart

AWAKE, O SLEEPER !!

Welcome to Advent.  Happy New Year Church!

At REZ we like to use the seasons of Advent and Lent to look inside, this season is one of anticipation - this morning's theme is "AWAKE, O SLEEPER" -

Does anyone else here have a routine when you first get up?  Some people stumble out of bed and make a bee line for the coffee maker - or even set it to make it automatically, so the magic elixir is already done when the alarm goes off!  Others get up and exercise, or read, some have a quiet time, others listen to the news.  I hope we all pray first thing in the morning. You know, say, "Good Morning, Lord"  instead of  "Good Lord, it's morning!" But we all have some routine, unique to us, that is the process of coming fully awake and being ready for the day.

This morning our readings bid us come AWAKE.

We hear it in the words of Jesus:

if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

In the words of Paul:

it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.

OR in the words of Isaiah:

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD!

Even in our prayer for Advent 1:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light...

Waking up is a daily experience for all of us.  We recognize that these cycles of rest and sleep are necessary, but we can't stay there and remain ...  productive;  even employed; or married;  healthy; even alive!  If we stay asleep all the time, they call it something else:   a coma!  A vegetative state!!

Staying asleep is a bad thing - big time.  And it is something that the combined voices of Scripture and our prayer book tradition warn against!  Welcome to ADVENT - the alarm is sounding!  Its time to wake up - its time to get up and get in the game!  The work of God is moving on around us, and the extent to which we are asleep, is the extent to which we are more of a hindrance than a help in that Kingdom work!  The extent to which we try to remain asleep during the alarm, is the extent to which we are in danger.

God wants us to get up and get in the game.  But we love to be spectators!  We love to cheer on our favorite sports team, from high school to the pros!  Most of us will watch the Bronco game this afternoon I imagine.  I love the observation about professional sports that Nicky Gumbel makes about football, "It's 22 guys on the field, desperately in need of a rest, surrounded by 70,000 desperately in need of exercise!"  That is a perfect description for the church as well!

God is calling us to awaken - to shake off the shackles of slumber, the works of darkness and to, I love this line in our collect, "Put on the Armor of Light!"

All of us put something on after getting up - a robe and slippers, our bath robe or a pull over.  Something ... and usually we change again after we shower and get ready for the day.  We have a set of comfy things we wear around the house, and a set of work clothes, be they jeans and work boots or a suit and tie.  We are all pretty well experts at putting things on as well.  Most of us can dress ourselves, some with more success than others!!

This is the metaphor that Paul uses over and over and over again when speaking about our life in Christ!  We are told to PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.  So we know how to put on our clothes - apparently, from looking at you all - but do we know how to "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ?"

How do we clothe ourselves in Christ?  How many here have played sports in some fashion at some time?  Have you ever played basketball in street shoes and a suit and tie?  Not for more than about 2 minutes.  Every game requires its own special set of clothing, if nothing more than the colors of a team, like the Rockies or Manchester United ... or if its the more elaborate uniforms and gear of professional hockey or football in the US.  Each team takes special care to dress appropriately to their sport - even within the sport there are differences in uniforms - if you are a lineman your helmet has a special face guard - if you are a quarterback or receiver, another specially designed face guard.  And if your a goalie, well, whoa Nellie!!  I'm not sure how those guys even move!!

The point is that there are things which identify us all in our putting on Jesus -  His identifying marks - you know:  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness - that stuff;  and there are specific things for us individually that denote a specific role on the team:  leadership, administration, discernment, helps, service, hospitality - or Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor or Teacher;  and the lists go on and on.

Once it was asked, "If you were brought up on charges of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"  Are you known to be a Christian among your peers at work, among your colleagues at the office, on your block, in your own home?

Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is a daily activity, just like getting dressed in the morning.  Just like getting up from sleeping is a process we all have to engage in, so is the discipline of being awake ... spiritually.  We talked about the process of getting the Word inside you a couple weeks back - do you remember? 

Hold up your hand and wiggle your pinkie!  

HEAR, next:  READ, next:  MARK, next:  LEARN, and:  INWARDLY DIGEST!  Each step gets more and more of JESUS inside of us!  And we are to be like a sponge!  Filled up with Jesus so that when the world squeezes us it gets ...  ummmm?     JESUS!  That is the way that most people are going to come into contact with Jesus!  Not by coming here to this building!!

There is a reason that the word GO appears over 1500 times in the Bible!  If you get up and get dressed every day of your life but you never leave your house... what's the point.  If you do that, they will tell you that you have "agoraphobia" - the fear of the outside world!!  And I'm afraid that may be an accurate diagnosis of the place that the Church is in, especially here in the West.  We are one of the most powerful forces for good on the face of the planet, and we are asleep or afraid - locked inside our homes and churches.

So Wake Up!  

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you!

Actually I did.

Put on the Armor of Light!  Isn't that an interesting turn of phrase?  It's in our morning collect, and it begs the question about both armor and about light!

In the East African Revival they had a practice they called, "walking in the light."  Of course, the phrase is taken from 1 Jn 1:7, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin!"  The metaphor of light is one that is pretty self evident.  But the effect of the light in this passage from 1 Jn is not.  Walking in the light means to walk in purity, with a clear conscience toward one another - keeping short accounts with our brothers and sisters, our family in the Lord.

Of course this assumes that we have more than a passing acquaintance - a Sunday morning only relationship - with each other.  It assumes a depth of community - koinonia or common life - life lived together, that we actually rarely see here in America.  But the promise is staggering!  If we walk in this kind of relationship with each other, keeping our accounts of hurt and offense short, we have koinonia together - a spiritual gift of the Unity of the Spirit, held in the Bond of Peace!  But there is something else - an added benefit:   And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!  

Have you ever wondered how the Blood of Christ gets applied to the specifics of our sin and its effects in our lives and the lives of others?  through confession and repentance, but most effectively, through confession to one another.  It's easy for us to confess to God (up there) - it's not too easy for us to confess to God, with skin on - sitting next to us.  To go and make it right - to extend the actual "peace of the Lord."  to not hold onto offenses and unforgiveness, but to forgive and to be agents of forgiveness and healing.

This is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ - Putting on the Armor of Light!  It's time for us to wake up!  To live our life together as though we are actually the People of God like we say we are.  It's time to wake up to His Word in our lives.  It's time to wake up to repentance and forgiveness - in our own lives and extended to the world around us.

May God give us His blessing and His presence as we seek His face this day and throughout this season of Advent and beyond.

May we pray...  this is the prayer of the penitent 

from our prayer book's Ministry of Confession and Reconciliation ...

Holy God, heavenly Father, you formed me from the dust in

your image and likeness, and redeemed me from sin and

death by the cross of your Son Jesus Christ.  Through the

water of baptism you clothed me with the shining garment of

his righteousness, and established me among your children in

your kingdom.  But I have squandered the inheritance of your

saints, and have wandered far in a land that is waste.

Especially, I confess to you and to the Church  .  .  .

Here the Penitent confesses particular sins.

Therefore, O Lord, from these and all other sins I cannot

now remember, I turn to you in sorrow and repentance. 

Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me

to the blessed company of your faithful people; through him

in whom you have redeemed the world, your Son our Savior

Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Watching in Prayer: Awake & Alert

Sermon at Resurrection Anglican Fellowship
Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010
Rev. Philip Eberhart
================================

This morning is New Year’s Day in the Church Calendar – the first Sunday of Advent! Advent is the season when we turn our attention to view the wonder of Christ’s coming among us – both His Promised return and His arrival, as we will celebrate next month, as a Babe in Bethlehem.

This morning our readings urge us to be awake and alert for the signs of His Second coming. Advent is a time of “preparation” – a time of awakening. Awakening to the signs around us and the “immanence” of His return… Advent is a call to stay awake, as Jesus warned in the gospel… be ready!

It was amazing this morning as I was up early typing out my thoughts for this sermon, here came my daughter, Kiri, who has slept all week till noon or later. She had an 8:10 flight this morning back to Omaha and a drive then to Iowa State. She was up at 4:45, an hour before her ride was scheduled and she was packed and ready to go. Readiness is in our heart and mind and it translates into the actions of our body.

What does it mean for us to be prepared for the return of the Lord Jesus?

If we look at Paul’s writings, throughout we see what scholars call an “immanent eschatology.” In words that normal people use, that means, he believed that Jesus could come back any time and that it was going to be sooner , rather than later!! We can see this feeling in his lines from Romans in this morning’s NT lesson. He also gives us some clues as to just what being “awake” might mean.

Here in Advent 2010, when we hear the words “our salvation is closer now; the night is far spent, the day is near…” we might respond, “DUH!!” These words were originally penned in the mid first century – how can we not, twenty centuries later be “closer now!” Closer indeed!!

Jesus tells us repeatedly in the Gospels of the signs to look for: As it was in the days of Noah: “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage… and they knew nothing!” Life was a big party. It was a marriage feast, oblivious to the conquering army banging down the door!! Like today, their “eat, drink and be merry” lifestyles had overtaken good sense. They were asleep at the wheel going a 100 miles an hour!!

So what is Paul’s prescription here this morning … to the Romans in the first century and to us in the 21st century?

“It is now the moment for you to wake from sleep!!”

LET US THEN…

Lay Aside the Works of Darkness and Put on the Armor of Light;

This is an active choice of our hearts and minds: A choice to live according to the directives of the Living God. Earlier in this same letter, Paul goes into great lengths to explain what is encapsulated here in just a few words. Almost three chapters, from 6 to the end of 8, explain the struggle we have with our flesh and the key role that our mind and heart have in this process:

RO 6:17 “…though you were slaves to sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness”

RO 8: 5-6 “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

Paul speaks of these two “Mindsets” as things that we can take off and put on, like a coat. That is in fact his metaphor for how we appropriate the work of and the character of Jesus Christ into our lives; PUT ON CHRIST! Just as matter-of-factly as if he were pointing to a new suit, Paul points us to the clothing of righteousness throughout his writings, as well as here in Romans.

But as he sums up here in Romans he goes into some little detail:

LET US LIVE HONORABLY (as in the day,):
Paul delineates just what honorably means here as well:

Not in reveling and drunkenness;
Not in debauchery and licentiousness,
Not in quarreling and jealousy.

In other words, not like it was in the days of Noah!!

INSTEAD, PUT ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST~
There it is.

Paul tells the Colossians, (3:12ff) “since God chose you to be the holy people whom He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. You must make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the most important piece of clothing you must wear is love. Love is what binds us all together in perfect harmony.”

He goes on: Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… Let the Words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. … whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus…”

This is what it means to be “awake” my friends.

Be awake to the times that we live in, to be sure – but not awake with fear, as if the thief is about to break in. No! Awake with anticipation – alive with the hope of His return. Awake with perception, discerning the times that we live in; awake to opportunity, having our eyes open to the movement of God in our midst and in the world, as he prepares us for an end times revival, the likes of which we have never seen.

And this morning I want to echo the words of Paul:

SALVATION IS NEARER TO US NOW THAN WHEN WE FIRST BECAME BELIEVERS!

STAY AWAKE IN PRAYER, IN YOUR READING OF GOD’S WORD, IN ACTIVE APPROPRIATION OF IT TO YOUR LIFE IN LIVING APPLICATION.

THE TIME IS SOON COMING WHEN WE ARE GOING TO BE CALLED ON TO BE THE LIGHT THAT WE ARE: THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF AN EVER DARKENING WORLD.

AND AS THE DARK GETS DARKER, EVEN A SMALL LIGHT IS BRIGHT!!

AMEN!