First Advent | Sign of the times

Advent means arri­val. When Jesus was born in Beth­le­hem two thousand years ago, most peo­p­le could not link the event with their expec­ta­ti­on of the Mes­siah. We are also in an Advent sea­son in which we await the return of Jesus Christ. In view of the limi­t­ed time, we should be wise and vigi­lant. The per­so­ni­fied redemp­ti­on, Jesus Christ, is near. The night will soon be over and the day will dawn.

The­re is an old sto­ry about a king who, accor­ding to the cus­tom of the time, kept a court jes­ter. The­se jes­ters had the right to tell the truth to kings and prin­ces, even if it was bit­ter. If it was too bit­ter, they sim­ply said: «He’s just a fool!» One day, the king gave the jes­ter a sil­ver jester’s staff with gol­den bells on it and said: «You real­ly are the grea­testössthe big­gest fool the­re is. For thatüYou will recei­ve this valuable baton as an award forür your Köand signs of my app­re­cia­ti­onäSup­port. You must never sell the staff or give it away. But should you ever meet a per­son who still has närri­scher ist als du, dann gib die­sem den sil­ber­nen Stab!»

The fool car­ri­ed this staff for years until the day he lear­nt: «The king is dying.» Then he hop­ped into the sick­room and said: «King I hear you want to go on a big jour­ney.» «I don’t want to» repli­ed the king, «I have to!» «Oh, you must?! So the­re is a power that is still abo­ve the gre­at ones of this earth. Well then! But sure­ly you’ll be back soon?» «No!» sob­bed the king «I never return from the coun­try I am tra­vel­ling to.» «Well, well», said the jes­ter ami­ca­bly, «You have cer­tain­ly been pre­pa­ring the jour­ney for a long time. I think you made sure that you were given a roy­al wel­co­me in the coun­try from which you are not retur­ning.» The king shook his head sad­ly: «I missed out on that. I never had time to prepa­re for this trip.» «Oh, then you must not have known that you would have to make this jour­ney.» «I alre­a­dy knew it. But as I said, I did­n’t have time to prepa­re pro­per­ly.»

Then the jes­ter quiet­ly laid his staff on the king’s bed and said: «You have com­man­ded me to pass this staff on to the one who is even more foo­lish than I am. King, take the staff! You knew that you had to go to eter­ni­ty and that the­re would be no coming back. And yet you did not make sure that the eter­nal doors were ope­ned to you. King, you are the grea­test fool!»

Our time is limited

«Lead your life in this way becau­se you know that time is limi­t­ed. Wake up, becau­se we are clo­ser to our sal­va­ti­on now than when we first belie­ved» (Romans 13:11 NLB).

Limi­t­ed resour­ces make you crea­ti­ve. When money is tight when buil­ding a house, you embark on crea­ti­ve pro­ces­ses that you would other­wi­se skip. This often results in opti­mi­sed, prac­ti­cal and beau­tiful solu­ti­ons. Paul says here that time is also a limi­t­ed resour­ce. A week ago, J. and B. Z. told us that their son, a father with three child­ren, had died. When asked what the value and mea­ning of life was, they repli­ed: «Teach us to con­sider how few days of life remain for us to attain a heart full of wis­dom!» (Psalm 90:12 New Tes­ta­ment). In other words: The path to wis­dom leads through the rea­li­sa­ti­on that our time is limi­t­ed.

What would you do if you knew you only had a year to live? A trip around the world? A crui­se? Jump out of an aero­pla­ne with a parach­u­te? When buil­ding a house with limi­t­ed finan­ces, you have to sim­pli­fy and focus on the essen­ti­als. In fact, wis­dom does not mean addi­ti­on, but sub­trac­tion. It’s about remo­ving unneces­sa­ry time was­ters from ever­y­day life and focus­sing on the essentials.

C.S. Lewis wro­te the book «Ins­truc­tions to an Under­de­vil» in 1938. In this book, the chief devil talks to the under­de­vil, his nephew Worm­wood, about how to pre­vent peo­p­le from get­ting in touch with God. The ans­wer is very simp­le: we make so much noi­se and dis­trac­tion in the world that they can no lon­ger hear the voice of God. It has work­ed! Here are a few facts: A sci­en­tist con­duc­ted a stu­dy of the pace of life in dif­fe­rent count­ries and came up with a ran­king: 1st Switz­er­land, 2nd Ire­land, 3rd Ger­ma­ny, 4th Japan. 130 years ago, when the­re were no elec­tric lights in most homes, peo­p­le slept on avera­ge three hours lon­ger than they do today. In addi­ti­on, life expec­tancy increased by 34 years during this peri­od. Alt­hough we have much more time at our dis­po­sal today, we are ful­ly occu­p­ied, dis­trac­ted and stres­sed. 130 years ago, the­re was an avera­ge of 400 items in a house­hold. Today the­re are 10,000. The­se items have to be purcha­sed, main­tai­ned, repai­red, used and sold. A com­muter working in New York sees more peo­p­le in a sin­gle day than someone in the Midd­le Ages saw in their enti­re life. The amount of infor­ma­ti­on that floods us today in a sin­gle day is equi­va­lent to the amount that rea­ched a per­son in the Midd­le Ages during their enti­re life of around 35 years. The­se facts dis­tract us from the essen­ti­als and make us slee­py for the real­ly important things.

«[…] Wake up, for we are clo­ser to our sal­va­ti­on now than when we first belie­ved» (Romans 13:11 NLB). Paul is addres­sing fol­lo­wers of Jesus here who have alre­a­dy gras­ped sal­va­ti­on through Jesus Christ. Part of sal­va­ti­on is that a fol­lower of Christ alre­a­dy reco­g­ni­s­es the truth, is free and is a son or daugh­ter of God’s fami­ly. All this is a fore­tas­te of the ulti­ma­te redemp­ti­on in per­fec­tion, of the reve­la­ti­on of the per­so­na­li­sed redemp­ti­on of Jesus Christ. When the aut­hor says that «we are now clo­ser to our sal­va­ti­on» he speaks of the second coming of Christ. The day on which the curtain falls bet­ween the visi­ble and invi­si­ble world and the new crea­ti­on comes into being.

Today is the first Advent. Advent means arri­val. Back then, peo­p­le were wai­ting for Christ. He was born as an incon­spi­cuous baby in the hin­ter­land of Pal­es­ti­ne. The vast majo­ri­ty of peo­p­le took no noti­ce of this event. This year’s pre-Christ­mas sea­son wants to keep ali­ve in us the memo­ry that Jesus is coming again, and in such a way that every per­son will reco­g­ni­se Him immediately.

Paul chal­lenges us to wake up. Have we fal­len asleep like the five women in the para­ble who ran out of oil (Matthew 25:1ff)? We some­ti­mes distin­gu­ish bet­ween the per­se­cu­ted and the decei­ved church. The Wes­tern afflu­ent church is in gre­at dan­ger of fal­ling asleep. Espe­ci­al­ly with regard to the return of Jesus Christ, the Bible repea­ted­ly says: «Be sober and vigi­lant!» My ser­mon last Sun­day is to be unders­tood as a wake-up call, so that we do not sleep through the coming of Jesus Christ in a fal­se sen­se of self-assu­rance.

The dawn is breaking

When will Jesus return? Paul’s ans­wer is: «The night is almost over; the day of redemp­ti­on is coming soon. The­r­e­fo­re do not live in dark­ness with its evil deeds, but take up the wea­pons of light!» (Romans 13:12 NLB). The night will soon be over, the dawn will break.

When Jesus was born in the sta­ble in Beth­le­hem, he came as light into the dark­ness (John 1:4). The dark­ness wan­ted to extin­gu­ish the light, but could not (v.5). Unfort­u­na­te­ly, lar­ge parts of this world are still in dark­ness. We hear enough about this in the dai­ly news.

When Jesus returns, he will simul­ta­neous­ly estab­lish the new crea­ti­on, a new earth and a new hea­ven (Reve­la­ti­on 21). The­re, ever­y­thing will be bright­ly illu­mi­na­ted by God’s light. «And the city does not need the sun or the moon to give it light, for the glo­ry of God illu­mi­na­tes the city and the Lamb is its light» (Reve­la­ti­on 21:23 NLB). Dawn is brea­king, the day is daw­ning! In other words: we are living in the end times. But this is not­hing new. It was alre­a­dy the case when Paul wro­te his let­ter to the Romans almost 2000 years ago. And yet the time has cle­ar­ly moved on. The­re are many signs that the day of Jesus» second coming is near. Else­whe­re Paul says: «You your­sel­ves know very well that the day of the Lord will come unex­pec­ted­ly like a thief in the night» (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:2 NLB). The dan­ger – espe­ci­al­ly at our pace of life – is not insi­gni­fi­cant that we will miss the moment of Jesus» return. So let’s wake up, becau­se time is limited.

Put on a new robe

Our vigi­lan­ce is reflec­ted in a cer­tain life­style: «Let us live an impec­ca­ble life that will enable us to stand in the light of day, a life wit­hout feas­ting and drin­king, wit­hout sexu­al debauch­ery and wit­hout quar­rel­ling and dog­ma­tism. Put off all that and put on a new robe: Jesus Christ, the Lord. No lon­ger be preoc­cu­p­ied with how you can satis­fy the desi­res of your own natu­re» (Romans 13:13f New Testament).

Paul uses the ter­mi­no­lo­gy of dres­sing seve­ral times when he speaks of an exem­pla­ry life­style. We are to stop satis­fy­ing the desi­res of our own natu­re and ins­tead put on the new gar­ment, Jesus Christ. It is the appro­pria­te «clot­hing» for ente­ring the City of Light. Jesus once told a para­ble about a wed­ding feast at which a guest was not wea­ring a wed­ding dress. This man was sent straight away (Matthew 22:11–13). Wit­hout a new gar­ment, the­re is no place for us at the wed­ding feast in the new world.

Jesus Christ is the per­so­ni­fied redemp­ti­on that is coming again. Howe­ver, redemp­ti­on will not only hap­pen in the future, but for­t­u­na­te­ly now. The­r­e­fo­re, we do not have to stop our sel­fi­sh actions by our own efforts and replace them with vir­tuous beha­viour. Redemp­ti­on means that as an alter­na­ti­ve to sin­ful beha­viour, we can walk into the dres­sing room. This truth is drip­ping with grace. We don’t have to impro­ve and do good things in our own strength and with a lot of disci­pli­ne, but put on Jesus Christ. Jesus then per­me­a­tes us and acts through us. So our front is not ethi­cal action, but the chall­enge of orga­ni­s­ing our­sel­ves in such a way that we meet Jesus in the dres­sing room. Last Sun­day I spo­ke about the fact that we should abide (dwell, stay, dwell) in Jesus. The dres­sing room is an expres­si­on of this abi­ding. The fruit in life comes from abi­ding in Jesus (John 15:5).

«For we are God’s crea­ti­on. He has crea­ted us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can car­ry out the good deeds that he has pre­pared for our lives» (Ephe­si­ans 2:10 NLB). But we have to go into the dres­sing room. And this is whe­re the cir­cle clo­ses. In a time of so many dis­trac­tions and the fast pace of life, this is real­ly chal­len­ging. That’s why we need to find ways to slow down and sim­pli­fy our lives. Rea­li­sing that our time is limi­t­ed makes us wise. Wis­dom is not intel­li­gence, but set­ting the right prio­ri­ties in life. Jim Elli­ot, an Ame­ri­can mis­sio­na­ry who was mur­de­red in Ecua­dor at the age of 29, says: «He is not a fool who lets go of what he can­not keep in order to gain what he can never lose.»

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Luke 21:25–28, 34–36; Romans 13:11–14

1. What does the con­cern about limi­t­ed time have to do with wisdom?
2. On the one hand, our time is limi­t­ed by our lives and, on the other, by the return of Jesus Christ. What do you think will come first in your life? Why?
3. How can we defy our enorm­ous pace of life and the many distractions?
4. What is the key to beha­viour that is not dri­ven by our own sel­fi­sh­ness, but by God’s deeds?
5. What does it actual­ly mean to enter the dres­sing room and put on Jesus Christ? Whe­re else in the Bible does the robe that is Jesus Christ appear?