Sleepers Awake!
Romans 13:11-14
We come to the first Sunday in Advent. Many think that this is a season of preparation for Christmas. We are getting ready for the baby Jesus to arrive. We sing our Christmas Carols to prepare room in our hearts for the Christ child. The music of Christmas is indeed beautiful, and we should always remember the greatness of God coming to earth and becoming flesh. Yet, this is not what the season of Advent is ultimately about. The season of Advent is much older than the celebration of Christmas itself. It is actually New Year’s Day today on the church calendar. We have just moved from Christ the King Sunday in which we remember that Christ is the Eternal King. We think of the joyous strains of the Hallelujah Chorus quoting the Book of Revelation. “For the LORD God omnipotent reigneth! And He shall reign for ever and ever! Hallelujah!”
As the beginning of the new Christian year. Advent is a time of preparation for the believer, so that when the trumpet finally sounds at the end of the age, we might be found ready. Just as John the Baptist prepared the way for the first coming of our Lord and His appearance to Israel, we call those to prepare and be ready for Christ’s return, this time as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. To miss this great event would be the greatest of tragedies.
The New Testament text for the first Sunday in Advent this year comes from the Book of Romans, the 13th chapter, verses 8-11. There is a beautiful hymn which Bach put to glorious music called “Wachet Auf.” This means “wake up in English and corresponds to this text. Paul admonishes the Romans, and us, that we need to wake up from our slumber. For the Christian, the time of the Lord’s return is always at hand. He has not shared the date with us but instead commanded us to be ready. He will return when we think not. God will bless the people who are ready when He comes, not those who get the date right. This means that our lives are lived in perpetual expectation. We even quote in the creed “We expect the resurrection of the dead. The word Advent in Latin is translated “coming.” Jesus is coming back into this world for His people.
If the day was at hand for Paul who writes to the Roman church almost 2000 years ago, how much closer is our salvation today. Peter reminds us that many people had become discouraged waiting on the Lord. Unbelievers mocked them in a way Linus is mocked for waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin. Many Christians have been deceived by one so-called prophet or another that this day was such and such a date, time and place. Even the Thessalonians had to be admonished. They had thought the time so near that they quit work and were sponging off their families. The Montanists were another such early group. We can think of the Millerites in New York almost 200 years ago. And we are plagued today with prophets who sell books claiming they have the time of the Lord’s return down. They have been an embarrassment to the Christian community. Their intentions may have been good, but the results have not been so.
Whatever waiting on the Lord’s return means, it certainly does not mean putting your life down here on hold. Jesus said as much. He said that the one He found busily engaged in the task He had given them would be blessed. In other words, the believer is to keep on with their work. St. Francis is said to have put it this way. He was busy planting wheat seed into the ground. Someone asked him that if he knew for certain that the Lord was going to return that very day, what would he do? He replied that he would finish planting the wheat.
If everyone knew when the Lord would return, they would slack off until just before the arrival. Then they would busy themselves getting ready for the guest. How many times is this form of procrastination employed? One knows her mother-in-law was coming for Christmas. The house is a mess, but the lady knows the time her mother-in-law is coming. At the last minute she throws things together. What a shame it would be if her mother-in-law arrived a day early!
The Christian has to live a life of constant preparation. Even if the Lord does not come in our generation, we will all leave this world. And sometimes our death may be quite sudden. We never know if we will have tomorrow to clean up our life. So it behooves us to be ready at all times.
Paul says the night is past and the day is coming. We must live in the day and not the night. The time to put off the works of darkness is now. There is no room in the Christian life for drunkenness, revelry, strife and other such behaviors which characterize the old life. Paul said earlier in Romans that we have died to these things. We put on a new man. If we have not emerged from such a life, we are still dead. Sleep is a euphemism for death. Paul makes this explicit in Ephesians where he says: Awake O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you life.” We are to put off the old life and put on Jesus Christ. We are to give no room for the works of the old man. The life we live in this world is supposed to model and anticipate the life to come. It becomes an invitation to others to come to this same life. Peter tells us that the world will not understand why you don’t engage yourself in the same riotous behavior you once shared with them.
These verses had a profound impact on St. Augustine. He had a Christian mother who always prayed for him. His father was a heathen, and Augustine floated between Christianity and Pagan philosophy, particularly the philosophies of Plato and Manicheism. He was taught Christianity by his mother. But he had not caught Christianity. The Roman Empire had officially converted to “Christianity,” so one could be a Christian outwardly without being one on the inside. Augustine lived a pretty loose life by his own admission. As a man of some wealth, he could go from place to place and school to school. He became quite familiar with philosophy. But a man named St. Ambrose of Milan saw something better for Augustine and actively worked to convert him. One day, he heard a child’s voice cry out “Take up and read!” He immediately went and opened the Bible and opened to these verses and was changed forever. He had passed from the murkiness of night into the daylight. He became a bishop, a theologian, and one of the great saints of the church.
Today, it is a common saying to get “woke.” Of course, what the world means by “woke” is exactly opposite what the Bible teaches. They are more like Eve who believed the promise of the serpent that shw would get woke and be able to determine right and wrong for herself. Instead the Lord commands us to be awakened to the truth. There are many like St. Augustine who were raised in the surroundings of the church and had been taught the things of Christ. But for some reason, these truths have not yet come to life in your soul. I could only pray that they would because your life will be changed if you do. If you are sure in your faith, be a St. Ambrose and find those who need to be nudged in the right direction.
If the church ever needed to be shaken out of its slumber, the time is now. All sorts of un-Christian ideas have polluted the church. We have become quite worldly. Like Samson, we try to spring up from sleep, not realizing that our strength has been shorn. We must live in the light of the Lord’s return. We have souls to win and people to warn. We are called to be watchmen over the city. We are to give warning at the approach of the enemy. If we are asleep, the city will be lost. However, the Lord will call you accountable. If you give the warning, they still may not listen. But you will have delivered your soul. Blow your trumpet! Sound out the warning! Send out the invitations! Bid them come! Plead with them! Do these things before the voice of the archangel and the trump of God sounds! Then it will be too late.
