Romans 13:11-14
Did anyone have a long weekend? I know a few of us did…between the trip to Tanglewood, the Battle park cleanup yesterday, the ball game, weekend activities, parties, family get-togethers and such, this time of the year gets tiring! So, most of us take a lot of naps this time of year, right? You know how when you take a nap…after you hit about the hour-mark, its really hard to get up? You’re straining your eyes to open…your arms and legs become dead weight…and an hour-long nap turns into a three hour nap…especially when its cold outside and you’re in your warm little cocoon of covers. And you’re dreaming about finding a bunch of money on the bus, or eating dinner with some really famous person you admire, and you don’t want to wake up…and all of the work you have to do around the house, or the homework that you’ve put off and all of the stress of the world is somewhere outside of your comfy little hideaway that lies in your 1000 thread-count Egyptian Cotton sheets (lucky). Every minute that you lay around napping makes it harder to get up. You don’t want to face the world, you don’t want to be cold, you don’t want to take care of all that unfinished business you left outside of your room…you just want 5 more minutes. You nap people know what I’m talking about. Well, I think Paul knew about nappy time…and I want us to keep that in mind as we read this morning’s Scripture. (Romans 13:11-14) You see…Paul was calling out the Christians in Rome, telling them that nap time was about over…and Paul’s emphasis here is that whether we like it or not, the lights are about to turn on and Jesus is about to open the door and wake us up…so we’d better go ahead, get up and finish up our business.
So, you have to understand that Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Rome, because the Roman Christians had become somewhat smug in their faith. There had been a dispute between Christians and Jews in Rome, and Roman officials kicked a number of Jews out of Rome. The Christians at Rome felt that God was smiling on them because of their favored place in the dispute, and when the Jews returned to Rome, the Christians acted like they were God’s new favorite people. Now, you know Paul considered himself straight-up hardcore Jewish…and so he wanted to remind the Christians in Rome that they didn’t exactly deserve the grace extended to them by God. Paul said, “Back in the day, you guys were a bunch of cavemen. You ran around eating whatever was laying around, you slept with anything that moved, you killed each other for no reason…basically, you were idiots. But God decided to rescue you anyway.” The Roman Christians were taking their faith for granted…they were not taking their faith seriously, because they assumed that they had been rescued and that God’s was done working on them.
But Paul knew that falling asleep at the wheel was dangerous business when it comes to God. I remember when Kelley used to work at Ham’s, she would close the store on weekend nights, which meant that she would get home around 3 a.m. Every weekend, I had great intentions of greeting her as she entered the door, so I would put on a movie in the living room, and sit on the couch with some paper for drawing, or my Gameboy to play. However, I always underestimated how tired it makes a person to wake up 5 days in a row at 4:30 a.m. while working 40 hours in a week. So, inevitably, I would awaken to Kelley poking me in the shoulder as I lay cockeyed on the couch with a Gameboy in my hand (my character would be dead), drool all over my chin and a crick in my neck. No matter how great my intentions, I could never overcome my heavy eyelids to greet my bride with a hug as she entered after a long night at work. Sleep is a great indication of weakness in the human body, because no matter how hard we try to stay awake, our bodies eventually get the best of us. Paul is using the language of waking up because he understands how weak we are as people…that we have such a hard time staying awake, even though Christ is about to come barging through our door at any second. Yet, we cannot stop it from happening…Christ is coming in, and He will flip the light on whether we are awake or still asleep.
I love the language that Paul uses in his letters, because it appeals to things that are fundamental to human experience. Paul talks about the world living at dusk…that nether region of the day just before the sun comes up. It really is a miserable time of day, especially in the winter. Most of the world is asleep…and the things that are awake, you probably don’t want to run into. On top of it all, it’s frigid outside. The cold just keeps coming at you…trust me, it is really hard to warm yourself up at 4 in the morning. And then, all of a sudden, the clouds burst into beautiful shades of purple and orange, and ice starts melting off of tree limbs and birds start chirping and your hands begin to burn as the numbness leaves your fingertips. The sun lights up all of the dark places, and you can see all those things that were making noise in the woods an hour ago. Life begins again. Paul knew that Jesus was coming, and that when He came, He would put an end to all the sketchy stuff that happens in the dark. You see, light uncovers all the things that are hidden at night, in the same way that Christ’ coming will uncover all the things that we don’t want to deal with right now. Those problems that we let persist in our lives…the unresolved issues we have with people in our lives, or situations that have hurt us in our past. Those things we do that we know we shouldn’t be doing…but we keep doing them because they feel good…or we keep doing them for no good reason at all…as much as we ignore these things, when Christ comes, the lights will come on and we’re going to have a huge pile of crap in the middle room to clean up. Paul is saying don’t wait until the last second…because its dusk…its last call, and the lights are coming on…we’d better deal with this stuff as soon as possible.
This passage of Scripture reminds me of one of my favorite video games from my childhood…a game called Castlevania 2. In this game, you run around in towns, graveyards and castles trying to find and defeat Dracula, and as you go from town to town, it turns from day to night. At night, the monsters in the game become much stronger, more dangerous, and much harder to kill. It’s all you can do to survive the night, and make it to the daytime. And yet, the fact that morning is coming gives you hope that you can survive. I feel that this is a message of hope in the midst of Paul’s warning to the Christians in Rome: if you can just struggle a little longer, the morning of Christ will dawn and you will gain new strength. As you all know by now, we are in the advent season, and this is an advent Scripture, because it points both to the birth of Christ, and the eventual return of Christ. In both cases, the dawn of Christ brings new strength…this is good news.
And yet, its also potentially devastating news. Especially for those who take advantage of being in the dark…because once the lights flip on, some of us are likely to be embarrassed. Paul talks about putting on Christ, using the same language as putting on clothes. This was a standard way of talking about trading virtues for vices…the students know what I’m talking about. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in college…I would wear a shirt, throw it on my chair, wear it the next day…wear it again for a few more days. Sleep in it. Well, at least the guys know what I’m talking about. Then I got married. Kelley had to live with my smell, so I learned to do laundry. Paul is saying its time to change your shirt…the light’s coming on, and people will be able to see that huge ketchup stain. And the sweat stains…and you smell nasty. Change your clothes. Quit being lazy…do you really want to look like that when Christ comes over? Well…He’s coming, so you’d better start doing your laundry.
And thus, we see the beauty of this passage. Paul uses many different examples that resonate with people…but he essentially says the same thing throughout: Christ is on His way, and you need to quit dilly-dallying. Its inevitable…you can’t stop it. But before he uses all of these metaphors…Paul says something very curious. Paul says that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Obviously, Paul is talking about Christ’ coming…but I think it is significant to note that Paul does not focus on that moment that we first believed as the most important moment of our salvation. Rather, salvation is something that is coming at us all the time…it’s a journey that consists of the first moment that we believed, Christ’ future return, and every moment in between. Salvation is as important now as it was weeks, or months, or years ago when we first became believers. We cannot rest on our laurels…we cannot become comfortable…we must live in the moment, because the future is hurtling towards us at lightening speeds, and we cannot slow it down.
I love Francis Chan, because most of the stories he tells challenge me to stop living a mediocre life. He loves to talk about his mother-in-law, because she challenges his in the same way. Chan talks about how his mother-in-law attended his daughter’s dance recital, and throughout the performance, she looked uncomfortable. He asked her if she felt okay, and she responded that she was all right…but that if Jesus returned right now, she would rather be praying than watching a dance recital. I know that response sounds harsh…but it comes from someone who understands urgency. This is someone of wisdom…who likely understands the imminence of her final meeting with Christ, and the value of her time left on earth. Paul understood this urgency, that regardless of what Christians had done or what they had left undone…regardless of what the world wanted or didn’t want…that Christ will return and that we will all have to deal with His return when it happens, whether we like it or not.
I want to end by telling a story…it is a story of an old Viking King…and as I tell the story, I will pass around this artwork done by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke which, in my opinion, beautifully illustrates the tale. The King’s name was Cnut, and all of the people of the land had great fear and respect of Cnut…so much so that King Cnut grew angry that people gave him undue praise. So, King Cnut had his royal court drag his throne to the seashore, and he sat upon his throne as the ocean tide rolled in. King Cnut commanded the waves, “Stop rolling in,” but the waves continued to roll in. He said again to the tide, “Do not rise any higher,” but the tide continued to rise above his feet. And thus, he told his court to recognize true power, and returned to his palace. This is Paul’s advent message…recognize. People couldn’t stop Him when He first came…death couldn’t even stop Him. And He’s coming again…so as Christmas approaches, remember that something else is approaching as well, and we can do no more to stop it than we can stop the waves of the ocean from beating upon the shore. All we can do is prepare the way. Because the Lord is coming soon.
