November 28 sermon

Text: Matthew 24:36-44
Preached at Holden and Dale Lutheran Churches, rural Kenyon, MN


Grace and peace to you from God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Tough words from Jesus today, yes?

“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: 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. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Three times in these three sentences, Jesus tells us to keep awake or be ready—clearly there is an urgency to his message.

This urgency may seem odd or unnecessary to us; after all, it’s been nearly 2,000 years since Jesus said these words. The New Testament writers didn’t seem to think it would be this long before Jesus’ return.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you why the wait has been so much longer than the early Christians expected. I think this is one of those things no one can answer.

There’s another thing I can’t tell you. I can’t predict when Jesus will return. “Keeping awake,” as Jesus urges, doesn’t mean speculating on specific timing. Jesus says that even he doesn’t know when he will return to establish God’s kingdom in its fullness. Only the Father knows, he says. How could human beings ever presume to know something Christ himself doesn’t know?

There seems to be a lot we can’t answer here. But there are a few things we can talk about. I’d like to talk about what we might do while we wait. What does it mean to “keep awake” for the Son of Man’s return?

Although it’s not about speculation, keeping awake does not mean idle waiting, either. It does not mean passively scanning the horizon for Jesus’ appearance while ignoring whatever is happening around us.

Instead, keeping awake means being about the business of God.

Keeping awake means proclaiming the hope of God’s future. We just heard that hope described in our first reading, in the prophet Isaiah’s vision of peace.

And keeping awake means loving our neighbors, “lay[ing] aside the works of darkness and put[ting] on the armor of light,” as Paul tells us in our second reading.

Let’s talk first about proclaiming hope.

Pastor Judy was telling us at text study about a little boy who was terrified of Jesus’ return. He knew Jesus had said, “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” So he was afraid to go to sleep.

He would say, “Jesus is coming…now. Jesus is coming…now.” He would say it over and over, because he figured Jesus wouldn’t show up at a moment when someone was expecting him. This is how he fell asleep each night…trying to prevent Jesus’ return.

Fear is a fairly common reaction to descriptions of Jesus’ return, and there are many fictional books and films that increase the fear. But God’s future is a cause for hope, not fear. In our first reading, Isaiah paints a beautiful picture of the future, when God’s kingdom will be established in its fullness.

“The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of mountains. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”

So God’s kingdom will someday extend over all the earth, and it will reach peoples and nations beyond Israel.

“For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem….O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

So all people will learn from God, and God’s people will join the other nations in walking in God’s ways.

God’s people haven’t always done this, of course. The ancient Israelites to whom Isaiah was speaking often wandered from God’s ways. Our ways of life often do not reflect God’s will for his people or his creation. But that will all change someday, when God himself will give instruction that no one can ignore.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

There will be peace. When the fullness of God’s kingdom is established, God will bring an end to war, and all of creation will live in peace.

This is a hopeful vision of the future. This future is something to look forward to with joy. And this vision of hope is vital in a world where there is often cause for anxiety and sorrow.

Without this vision of hope, Christ’s return might indeed be a fearful thing. Without this vision of hope, we might forget that God is good, and that we are safe in God’s hands. Without this vision of hope, the world would be nothing more than a broken top spinning wildly out of control.

It’s easy to lose sight of this hope. This is why we must come regularly to hear God’s word and to gather at the table, for this is where God gives us this vision of hope. This is where God reminds us of our future, so that our future can shape our lives in the present.

A vision is more than just a dream. It is more than just a fantasy or a wish. A vision is a new way of seeing what is real and true. When we claim the truth of this vision, it breaks into our reality even now. This kingdom of peace is clearly a vision for the future, but it most certainly has an impact on the present as well.

This vision of hope guides our actions as we await Christ’s return. When we live in this hope, instead of in fear, we can be about God’s work of loving those around us.

And this is what we do while we wait for the Lord. This is another part of “keeping awake.” We let the vision of hope move us to love our neighbors.

Martin Luther is credited with saying that if he knew the world were ending tomorrow, he would plant a tree. This is love flowing from hope for the future. This is the God’s kingdom breaking into the present.

God’s kingdom breaks into our present as well. Paul tells us in our second reading that “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers,” and we should, therefore, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

In our baptism, we do exactly that. In the waters of baptism, we are claimed by God and clothed with Christ. We are “sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” And the Holy Spirit works in us throughout our lives: shaping us into conformity with Christ; helping us live into the image we bear.

So what does this mean exactly? What does it mean to love and serve our neighbors in the way of Jesus Christ?

Loving our neighbor means looking out for our neighbor’s best interest, just as we instinctually look out for our own best interest.

In the Large Catechism, Martin Luther explains the fifth commandment, “you shall not kill.” He says, “this commandment is violated not only when we do evil, but also when we have the opportunity to do good to our neighbors…but fail to do so. If you send a naked person away when you could clothe him, you have let him freeze to death. If you see anyone who is suffering from hunger and do not feed her, you have let her starve.”

These words are challenging. Loving our neighbor clearly involves much more than simply following a checklist (no killing, no stealing, no adultery). Loving our neighbor clearly means that we cannot remain distant and unconcerned. Loving our neighbor requires us to get involved, to pay attention, to “keep awake,” even when it isn’t easy.

And it often isn’t easy. As one theologian says, our neighbor might not be the person we would choose. Our neighbor might not be the one who looks like us, or who asks very little from us. Instead, “the neighbor is always the other person given to us, the one who crosses our path whether we like it or not…! The neighbor is always an unexpected appearance in our midst, in the midst of our lives. The neighbor, understood in this way, is Christ” (Dirk Lange, WorkingPreacher.org).

Jesus says in Matthew 25 that when we care for the “least of these” who are hungry, thirsty, naked, or sick, we care for Christ himself. On the contrary, when we neglect those in need, we neglect Christ himself.

Of course, this love of neighbor is not about earning favor with God. Jesus Christ has done that for us. Instead, this love of neighbor is about “keeping awake” and “putting on Christ” as we joyfully anticipate the future. It is about trusting that God keeps his promises, and that Isaiah’s vision of peace is true for us. It is about knowing that Christ will return to establish God’s kingdom in its fullness.

Loving our neighbor is possible for us because God’s kingdom is already breaking into our reality. The Holy Spirit enables us to love our neighbor, and the presence of that Spirit is a sign of God’s kingdom, already a reality among us but not yet fully complete.

This is precisely the tension in which we live. We are a people of already and not yet. Christ has come already, but his kingdom is not yet fully realized. So we wait in the tension. We prepare for the “not yet”—the final coming of God’s kingdom—in hopeful anticipation.

We stay alert to the Son of Man’s return and we do not fear, like the poor little boy who couldn’t go to sleep. We do not fear because we belong to the Son of Man for whom we wait, and we know he cares for us.

Meanwhile, we cling to the vision of God’s peaceful kingdom, and we proclaim this hope we have received. We give thanks for the Holy Spirit, who is already equipping us to do God’s work while we wait. We put on Christ Jesus, who claimed us in our baptism, and we look for Christ already present among us: in the word, in the meal, in the neighbor who needs our love.

Thanks be to God! Amen.