Mark 13:32-37 “Keep Awake”
This last Tuesday, I got a call from my wife Helen in the morning. She was at work and had to inform me that the pick-up truck had a warning light come on in the dashboard. She said the light was showing that there was maintenance required. She asked me what that meant. I told her that I did not know, but that there was probably some required maintenance. Maybe there was low oil or radiator water. I could not know without looking at it. I suppose Helen was asking if it the truck was going to leave her stranded on the side of the road. However, she was able to drive the truck back in with no problem, ignoring the warning light.
I wonder if I should even ask how many of us are driving cars right now that have the “Check Engine” light on right now? The light comes on, but we notice no difference in the car, so we keep driving. After awhile we forget that the light is even on.
For the truck that Helen was driving, the light had come on not because of any mechanical issue at all. It was a regular service interval that had been reached. I looked that up in the owner’s manual. The truck had reached 100,000 miles. Nothing wrong with that at all. That was just a little reminder for the driver—although it is scary when lights start flashing on the dash.
I had bought the service book on the truck, which was fortunate. Without the secret of how to turn off the warning light, it would still be on. One has to pullout a small plug in the dashboard beside the steering column and move a switch inside that is connected to the odometer. I guess the idea was that one would have to take the vehicle back to the dealer, and the dealer would make money. Unfortunately, today there is no Mitsubishi dealer on the island! The funny thing is that the service book said specifically that one should remove the warning lamp completely. Why did they put it in then?
Another reason we tend to ignore warnings is that we often get them after the fact. Have you ever gone to a restaurant and ordered off the menu and then once you have finished looked at the placemat on the tray (so you know what kind of restaurants I eat at) to discover that the triple bacon cheese burger you just ate is listed at 3600 calories?! That is like two days worth of calories—for a rhino!
Another reason we ignore warnings is that we simply don’t know what to do with them. There is a commercial on television that is advertising a certain drug that has the side effect (among many others) that includes “unexpected death.” That is like curing a headache with a neck tourniquet if you ask me. What should we do with that kind of a warning?
The fact of the matter is that for the most part, even though we get warnings, we rarely know what to do with them. We go to the airport and hear the constant reminder that the “Threat level is condition orange.” Actually I have no idea what that means. And, we have been at condition orange for over eight years now. The warning has lost all meaning to me.
On Thursday there was a flash flood warning for the island for rain that was not even really expected. That was of course Thanksgiving Day. That is the day that my family heads down to Ruth Cassel’s house down by the riverside. We all got in the car and drove down as always. We did take the four-wheel drive in case of mud. We parked five feet away from the rushing torrent going by the house. We were not going to miss Thanksgiving at Ruth’s because of a silly warning!
Today we start the season of Advent. What is that? It is the time before Christmas that we are officially warned that Christ is coming. The people 2,000+ years ago had had all of the warnings, but they were like us today with all of our warnings. They had heard the warnings for centuries. They had seen the signs, but they ignored them because they might interfere with their daily lives. Then, only after Jesus is born, crucified, and risen from the dead, do the people look back and think to themselves: “Maybe that was the Messiah.”
Jesus himself tells us in our Scripture for this morning that we are prone to missing the signs and that we had better stay alert for the master is going to return, so we had better be ready. We have to think about this that this is our second chance to get it right this time. The master was with us once. We almost missed that one. But now, the master has told us for sure that he is coming again. If we get it wrong the second time, it cannot bode well for us.
I believe the reason that people missed the signs the first time around is that they put the secular above the religious. I really do think that we are making that same mistake today. I know that this is going to be controversial, but that never stopped me from preaching it! All of the warnings I mentioned at the start of this sermon were secular warnings, right? They had nothing to do with God. The flash flood warning was from the weather people. The calorie warning was from the food people. The check engine warning was from the car people. When was the last time that you actually received a religious warning in your life? Let me repeat that: When was the last time you actually received a religious warning in your life?
Last weekend, the news broke that Congressman Patrick Kennedy, representing Rhode Island to US Congress, has been banned by his bishop in the Catholic Church from taking communion. The Bishop name is Tobin, if you want to look up the story later. I find this to be a landmark case for the church that should not go unnoticed in local churches! A US Representative is getting a religious warning from the church!
Since the 1802 case of Thomas Jefferson refusing to establish a Federal Day of Thanksgiving, he was of course President at the time, we have in this country been living under the Jeffersonian democratic understanding (based on the non-establishment clause of the US Constitution) that the Federal Government is the one who gives warnings to the church. Do you understand my meaning? In this country, the norm is that the religious organizations get warnings from secular institutions, such as the government or ACLU, not the other way around.
For the first time in my lifetime, I hear the church saying to the government, if you continue to support Federally Funded abortions, then we have to warn you that you will be deemed an un-confessed sinner and will have to be barred from partaking of the Holy Sacraments. This is the first time that I know of that a religious warning has in fact been heeded by the government—federal funding for abortion was removed from the newly proposed universal healthcare bill!
So, this morning I want to give you this religious warning: Christ is coming. Christ is coming again. If you skip all the other warnings that you get on a daily basis, fine! Do not miss this that we get from Holy Scripture, from Christ’s own words, the Word of God: Christ is going to return just as he left us. He will descend from heaven. Check out verse 26 of this same chapter in Mark, “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” Let’s read just one more line, “Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”
As we see there is one more religious warning that follows naturally from the first; that is, “Keep awake.” How long are we supposed to keep awake? After all, we have kept awake now for over two thousand years. WE are getting rather tired of staying awake. Lord, if you want to come now, we are ready right now! What would be the chance that Jesus would come while we are all together reading his word and praising his name? He’ll probably come while we are shopping or watching Dancing With the Stars on television. (Cannot believe that Donny Osmond won, by the way.) Could you imagine if Jesus had come before the finale of Dancing With the Stars? We would have never known who was going to win! Of course, if Jesus comes, then we all win!
As for me, when I think about keeping awake, the concept of drinking coffee comes to mind. I could make a big pot of rich black coffee and sip it for the rest of my life waiting and trying to keep awake. I could really use that caffeine fix. Fortunately for us, we do not need to do that: Jesus is going to help us to stay awake. This is also promised in Scripture. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1:4-9, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and in knowledge of every kind—just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Jesus will strengthen you until that time when he is finally revealed. So, this morning not only do you get the religious warning but also the religious strength from God to heed the warning in your life. Let us indeed keep awake as we prepare our hearts in hope for the coming of our Lord.
Amen.