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"Get Ready for the End" Romans 13:11-14

Yr. A, Advent 1

Nov. 28, 2004

by Clancy Nixon

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

When something is important enough to us, we all get ready, don't we? Things

like your big presentation to the Board; your final exams; your wedding day. Some of

you spent quite a bit of time preparing for Thanksgiving holiday this week. There is the

grocery shopping; the cooking and cleaning; and most stressful of all, preparing

emotionally to spend time with your relatives or in-laws! But Thanksgiving is just a

warm-up for an even busier Christmas, isn't it?

Speaking of holidays, Happy New Year! The church year starts today with the

first Sunday in Advent. Advent means "coming," as we prepare for the coming of our

King. While the culture prepares for Christ's first advent, or Christmas, the Church

prepares for Christ's second advent, also called the Escaton, or the end of the world as we

know it. Advent is not about pretending that we live during that span of history when

Christ had not yet come. We certainly celebrate that first coming, but in terms of our

spiritual preparation, we prepare for what is to come, not what has already come we

prepare for the end of all things. In Advent, the Church calls us to prepare for our own

death, and for the death of this present age. That is why Advent is traditionally a time for

fasting, introspection and self-denial, a time for quiet.

Jeremy Taylor, the Seventeenth Century Anglican Divine, wrote a book called

"Holy Dying," which is instruction on preparing for eternity. Now that would be

appropriate Advent reading. Taylor thinks it a shame and a loss if we wait until our death

bed to make preparations for our end, as some Roman Catholics do. Taylor said many

Catholics think it is not necessary to live a holy life before meeting your maker that is,

not necessary to receiving a favorable assignment in the afterlife with the sheep, not the

goats! They seem to think that their own holiness is not essential, but only a Roman

priest is - to give them extreme unction, and then all will be well. Taylor sees that as a

vain hope, since extreme unction is administered only when the layman is half dead and

insensible, and most likely is incapable of true repentance. No, says the Bishop of Down

and Connor, it is best to prepare for your own end when you are in good health, and

sound mind.

You may not be inclined to do that during Advent, since Christmas is busy

enough with shopping and holiday parties; besides, thinking about your own death may

seem morbid to you. Perhaps this cartoon will enlighten and amuse you. You see the

guy driving down the road sees something in his rear view mirror. That's the grim reaper,

the symbol for death. The title of this cartoon is "Objects in the mirror may be closer

than they appear." The end is coming, like it or not. The best way to prepare for the End

is by seeking holiness of life.

That is the Apostle Paul's advice to us in Romans 13, verses 11-14. It is found in

your blue pew Bibles at page 1124. Romans 13:11-14. Let's read these verses together.

"And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up

from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The

night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and

put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and

drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to

gratify the desires of the sinful nature." Romans 13:11-14

Paul gives us three kinds of time in this passage. First, verse 11, he tells us to

"understand the present time." The Greek word used for time here is Kairos time, as

distinguished from Chronos time, which is clock time. Kairos is an existential moment

of opportunity, of decision, or of epiphany. A Kairos moment can stretch to hours or

days, a moment that is experienced as apart from clock time. That is the first kind of time.

The other two kinds of time are the past and present/future. The New Testament divides

history into two ages: First, the age of the old covenant, before Christ's appearing on

earth; Second, the "age to come" which was inaugurated at the first coming of Christ, is

only partially realized now, and will come in fullness only when Jesus returns to earth in

great glory. Do not miss this because Jesus has already come, the age to come is

already breaking in to our present age, and we get a foretaste of the fullness of the age to

come in miraculous signs such as healing, and deliverance from evil spirits, and the

raising of the dead. From the time of the first Christmas until now, we have been living

in the last days, and we await his coming in glory.

In verse 11b, Paul tells us to "wake up from our slumber." Why? Because our

"salvation is nearer now than when we first believed." Wait a minute; if we are looking

back to when we first believed, how can our salvation be nearer now, meaning that it will

be in the future? Paul uses the word salvation to mean several different things. The

moment we first believed in Christ alone to save us from our sins, we were saved, in the

sense that we were justified before God. That is our past salvation, and it is why I can

say, "I got saved in July 1971." Salvation also is happening to us in the present, for it can

mean healing and sanctification. So you are being saved now as you are healed from

cancer, or you grow in holiness. Salvation will also come in fullness in the future, when

Christ comes again. As Paul says in verse 12, "The night is nearly over; the day is almost

here." The day will come when Christ is glorified in the earth, and we too will be

glorified in our bodies, Romans 8:21-23, for in that day, we will reign with Him. Amen?

Verse 12: Paul tells us that the night is nearly over, the day is nearly here.

Christians have always believed that the end is near, since Jesus said it was. Some people

say Paul was wrong about this; that Christians have been wrong to have this hope, and

two thousand years of history shows that, ipso facto. Jesus tells us in Matthew 23 that the

ones who are wrong are the ones who profess to know the day and the hour the end will

come people like radio preacher Howard Camping in 1992; or like William Miller, the

Seventh Day Adventist who predicted the end in 1844. Paul was not wrong; Jesus was

not wrong. The last 2,000 years have been the last days.

How do we prepare for the end? In verse 12b, Paul goes on to say we are to take

of the deeds of darkness, and put on the armor of light. In other words, we are to clothe

ourselves in appropriate clothing. The picture Paul paints here is of the person who has

been asleep. He says wake up, get out of bed, and then get out of your pajamas, and get

dressed. Take off your night clothes, which are the deeds of darkness, and instead, put on

the armor of light. The Christian life is not sleep; it is not the list of sins in verse 13; the

Christian life is a battle, and that is why we must put on armor, the armor of light. Yes,

we battle against the Devil, but we also battle against our own flesh, our own selfish

desires. Paul says we prepare for the end times by behaving decently, as people do in the

daytime, and not in debauchery, as people often do at nighttime.

Let's look at just one of the sins he lists in verse 13, drunkenness. There is a

nighttime activity for you most drinkers feel embarrassed to drink before five o'clock.

When a person gets drunk, they are being selfish. It may seem like it's about your friends,

about fitting in to the crowd, but it's really about yourself. People may pressure you to

drink with them, but often that is only because if you don't drink, if you stay sober, it is a

reproach to those who do. The people who pressure don't care about you, they only care

about themselves. It's all about having a good time, about getting a buzz on. When you

are drunk, you are no good to anybody else. If you are needed by anyone, they will have

to wait. When you are drunk, you are much more likely to do these other nighttime

activities that he lists sexual immorality and orgies. Then there are these holiday

temptations for you at family gatherings and office parties jealousy and dissensions.

Alcohol will just make that worse.

In verse 14, Paul tells us to respond by clothing ourselves with the Lord Jesus

Christ. In Galatians 3:27, Paul wrote that we who are in Christ by justification and

baptism have clothed ourselves with Christ. Here in Romans, the clothing ourselves with

Christ is something that we still have to do, or still keep doing? Why? It's not only for

adornment, like clothing, adorning ourselves with the fruit of the spirit, for example, self-

control. Here in verse 14, it's for our protection, it is armor. We need protecting from

our own sinful nature. The armor is Christ himself, in whom we trust. We don't trust our

faith, we trust in Christ himself, in his person, his work, his mercy, his timing.

We protect ourselves by not gratifying our sinful nature, by not getting drunk, by

fleeing sexual immorality. There is more than that: Paul says, don't even think about how

to do those things. In order to live a holy life, we are not to make any provision for sin.

We can so easily do that. We may not watch that DVD that we know we shouldn't; but

still we don't throw it away. Keeping it around makes provision for sin. Paul says we are

instead to make provision for virtue by clothing ourselves with Jesus Christ. Surround

ourselves with the things of God. Is music a temptation of you? Buy Christian music.

Magazines? There are great Christian magazines. Art? We put scripture on our walls by

buying beautiful calligraphy of our favorite scriptures. Most of all, put on Christ, by

keeping him near in prayer, in fasting, in praising him, in remembering all his mighty

deeds.

Please don't take this advice on holiness as preparation for death as a kind of

burden, or law. Of all people, Christians don't need to fear the end of our lives, or the

end of all things. We look forward to the end with joy, and anticipation, because God

will recreate all things. We look forward to a new heaven and a new earth. We look

forward to getting new bodies, to a world with no more tears no more death, no more

war. Amen?

Get ready for God this Advent by deciding to become more holy. Jesus is coming

soon.