LOOK AHEAD: Episode 3
Message Recap
We are a society that is enslaved to time. There are many companies who have as their sole purpose, to make time saving devices. We have laptop and tablet computers, cell phones, pagers, PDAs or a host of calendar planners all to help us keep on schedule. It makes you wonder how in the world anyone accomplished anything in years past. Many of us feel like we have too much to do and too little time to do it.
Part of the reason for this is that we are trying to do too much. We are pulled in so many directions that we aimlessly move from one demand to another. The key principle in most management seminars is to determine the things that are most important and then put your focus on these things.
Many of followers of the Lord Jesus Christ take the same approach to Advent—it’s an unpleasant season of waiting that we want to get through as quickly as possible. In other words, we want to arrive at the awaiting Christmas celebration. But Advent is a powerful season for believers, a time when we rehearse a common story of God’s people: waiting on him to fulfill his promises and learning to trust him in our waiting.
This time of year, produces more waste than any other time—we throw away extra food, the plastic packaging around toys, and use an excessive amount of wrapping paper and bows on our gifts.
We live in a culture of waste—we hardly notice how much of the stuff that fills our lives is used once and immediately disposed of.
But God doesn’t waste his creation, including our work and time on this earth. While waiting for his promises can feel like “wasted” time, “God is involved in 'building to last', in creating a sustainable world and sustainable relationships with us human beings. He doesn't give up on the material of human lives. He doesn't throw it all away and start again. And he asks us to approach one another and our physical world with the same commitment. The life of Jesus, the life in which God identifies completely with our flesh and blood is the supreme sign of that commitment.
Advent is a powerful season because we remind ourselves that this waiting process is an integral and defining aspect of God’s people: trusting in a promise that is not yet fulfilled or not completely fulfilled and learning how to wait well in the meantime.
This is the same thing the Apostle Paul seems to be saying at the end of Romans 13. After all he has told us about serving the Lord, using our gifts, showing genuine love, paying our debts, submitting to authorities and loving our enemies, Paul now writes,
11 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. 12 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. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 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
At the end of a longer section about all the implications of the believer’s faith in the way they live their life,
Paul reminds his readers they are doing these things with the end in mind.
Instead of continuing in their lives with apathetic or uninterested attitudes, believers are supposed to “wake” from their slumber (v. 11).
Paul knew it could take place at any time and sought to prepare Christians
—both in his generation and in ours—for that 'blessed hope
Big Idea of the Message: Our time of waiting is not wasted but is an important part of God’s plan.
Our time of waiting should prompt us to partner with God in his redemption of this world.
God has a plan when we don’t know which way to go.
However, if left to ourselves, we cannot win this war. No, it took Jesus, Eve’s seed par excellence, to deliver the crushing blow (Col. 2:15), and if we are in Him, we share in and extend His victory (Matt. 28:19; Rev. 20:4).
In Isaiah 9, the prophecy was made: the people living in darkness have seen a great light. Similarly, here “the night is nearly over” (v. 12). While Christ’s coming exposed us to the Light of the World, we still live in a world that has yet to be fully redeemed and restored, and as such, we still live in the darkness of sin and destruction. We have enough light, however, to know that the night is nearly over. This is where the use of an Advent wreath is particularly moving: we have seen the way that increased light changes the way we see everything, and the same is true for our in-between lives today.
This season of anticipation for the incarnation should remind us that God doesn’t waste our physical and material world. Our hope is not in being plucked out of creation and living in a disembodied eternity, but in the redemption and recreation of the world. Instead, our waiting is a time of anticipation for his total redemption of the earth as the fuel that empowers us to create redemption and restoration here and now.
These are Paul’s instructions for us in our current time of waiting: “put on the armor of light” (v. 12), “behave decently” (v. 13), and “clothe” ourselves with Jesus (v. 14). This time of waiting is important but not wasted, for just as God’s people have always been instructed to live godly lives in their “in-between” times, so are we. The joy we will celebrate at the end of this season is not our final joy, but it is a powerful reminder that God cares about our physical and material lives and will fulfill everything that he has promised.