Hopeful
Watchfulness!
Sermon for Sunday November 30, 2008
1. Good Morning. Let’s pray . . . O Lord, may the words of my
mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and
our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: We are not orphans – abandoned by uncaring
parents. We are not accidents that oozed
up out of the primordial mud! We’re not
abandoned or forgotten cosmic experiments of an absent deity.
No! We were made in the image
and likeness of God and we’re therefore His kin and truly we’re restless until
we rest in Him!
Our deep yearning for our heavenly Father comes to the surface again
and again but never perhaps more poignantly than during the Season of Advent
when we remember our Lord’s first coming 2,000 years ago and at the same time
anticipate with a deep yearning His Second Coming . . . perhaps in our
lifetime!
For people who don’t know God as their Father and Jesus as their
Brother they are left with this longing and many seek to appease it – albeit
imperfectly – by sentimental stories that seem to storm through the internet
particularly at this time. I know that
for a fact because I invariable get a dozen or more of them from y’all before
Christmas Eve!
You know what I’m talking about – you get them too and often forward
them on to me.
All of these are good and fine but the greatest of them all is the
Nativity story which reminds us that God came to us – to rescue us - and to
remind us of His abiding, providential and redeeming love! We have a good and faithful Father God who is
determined to give us a happy ending!
It’s this
yearning that we’re going to get in touch with this morning!
In preparation for this sermon I surveyed some of you and your
responses were very revealing. Men and
women seem to experience this inner yearning differently. I sense that men don’t like the word
“yearning” but relate better to a sense of something missing perhaps.
As I was exploring this with some of our men it suddenly hit me that
the one yearning is not only you and me but most poignantly God Himself for it
was Him who came to us that first Advent!
God years to
Commune with us!
Soon when we come to this Altar – this Communion Table - God’s yearning
will be satisfied as much as ours. Have
you ever thought that you are blessing Him by receiving the Communion elements
in love as much as you are being blessed by these elements?
3. Scripture: You heard the scripture readings – they were drenched
in a sublime sense of that human longing for God – for our Creator’s heavenly
embrace!
Listen again to the first few lines of the reading from Isaiah: “You,
LORD are our Father, our redeemer you are named forever. Why do you let us wander, O LORD from your
ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear
you not? . . . O that you would
rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you . . .”
And listen to a few lines from our Psalm reading for today: “Lord
make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved. O shepherd of Israel, hearken from your
throne upon the cherubim, shine forth.
Rouse your power and come to save us!”
And listen to our Lord’s advice to us in this time of yearning and
waiting. Now remember that this is
Jesus, God in flesh – God incarnate, who has become one of us – taken on our
limitations and subjected himself to our evaluation, scorn and ultimate
judgment. We – our ancestors crucified
Him! Listen now to His advice to us in
response to our often unnamed yearning for Him:
Mark 13: 33
“Jesus said to His disciples; ‘Be watchful! Be alert!
Keep a sharp lookout, for you don’t know the timetable. 34 its like a man who takes a trip,
leaving home and putting his servants in charge, each assigned a task, and
commanding the gatekeeper to stand watch.
35 So, stay at your post, watching. You have no idea when the
homeowner is returning, whether evening, midnight, cockcrow, or morning. 36 You don’t want him showing up
unannounced, with you asleep on the job.
37 I say it to you, and I’m saying it to all: Stay at your post.
Keep watch.”
The Greek word translated here by
“watchful” is aÓgrupne÷w agrupneo and it means ‘to be alert, to be on the
lookout for, to be vigilant.
Now I want us to try to get into the head and heart of Jesus and
discover where this advice is coming from!
Remember now this is Jesus – God in flesh. What’s He telling us but even more
importantly what’s driving Him to say this to us?
I want us to remember that I began this reflection with a simple recognition of our human yearning for our Creator God -
but here we’re reflecting on the heart of our incarnate Lord – what’s driving
these words of exhortation to stay vigilant for His coming?
Yes, He wants to be found!
Did you hear that – He, Jesus, wants us to be looking for Him – ready when He comes – ready and alert!
Remember what He has told us – Rev. 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if
any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup
with him, and he with me.
Listen not only to the words but hear what’s in the words – try to hear
the whisper of our God’s heart to us . . . Jesus is always on the other side of
our every thought – seeking our recognition but to recognize him we have to be
alert – attentive – listening watching for His appearing!
And also - James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to
you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double
minded.
Jesus, God incarnate, wants us watching for His appearing – His
adventing - in our lives and He wants us to draw near to Him.
Our God wants
you to draw near to Him. Have you ever
been in a family setting and one of the children draws near to you and seeks
your comforting presence.
Do you
remember how you felt – this is what’s going on in the heart of God!
It’s important to remember: Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being;
God is all about us!
God incarnate
is reminding us to remain vigilant for His coming – attentive to His Presence!
His closing comment is “Stay at
your assigned post and do what you’re supposed to do and that is to keep
watch!”
Let me interpret what He’s saying in these
lines:
“You are made in God’s image –
made to know and respond to Him as Your heavenly father. To deny Him is an aberration – a dysfunction
– a result of sin! But to yearn for and
respond to Him is normal – doing what you were made to do.
But because of our rebellion we’re
separated from Him but because of Christ we have a way back to be reunited to
Him. And so we have this deep yearning
for Him. This deep sense of emptiness. This makes us alert and searching. All sorts of things masquerade as Him and
things of His but nothing will ultimately satisfy but Him! Psychology, drugs, riches, new age psycho-babbly,
Buddhist denial of Creation and Hindu promises of reincarnation ultimately won’t
satisfy that deep longing in your soul but your Creator, your heavenly Father,
the Brother and Comforter of Your soul – He will satisfy you because He created
You in His image and likeness!
Jesus is encouraging us to “stay
at our assigned post – to stay at the place of our calling and be alert to His
comings – minute by minute! And when He
reveals Himself to lovingly acknowledge Him and if appropriate to share His
revelation with others around us!”
5. Application: What this means to me is to work at being
continuously aware of Him. Frank
Laubach 1884-1970.
a)
One of his most widely influential devotional works was a pamphlet entitled
"The Game with Minutes." (1961) (found in Narthex) In it, Laubach
urged Christians to attempt keeping God in mind for at least one second of
every minute of the day.
In
this way Christians can attempt the attitude of constant prayer spoken of in
the book of Thessalonians.
The
pamphlet extolled the virtues of a life lived with unceasing focus on God.
Laubach's insight came from his experiments in prayer detailed in a collection
of his letters published under the title, "Letters by a Modern
Mystic."
I’ve
sought to discipline myself to do this and I’ve shared with you how I’ve done
this in the past. I’ve sought to include
God in my every thought. Let us remember
that we are to lead every thought captive to Christ:
2Cor. 10:5 . . . and we brng every thought into
captivity and obedience to Christ;
b) The
"The apostle says, ‘pray
unceasingly.’ By this he means to express in these words that we should
remember God at all times, in all places and in all things. If you are making
something, you should think of the Creator of everything that exists, and if
you see the light, remember Whoever gave it to you; if you look at the sky, the
earth, the sea and all that they contain, admire and glorify He Who created it.
If you are wearing a garment, think of Him to whom you owe the clothing and
thank Him for providing for your existence. In short, may every movement you
make be a cause for you to celebrate the Lord. Thus you will pray constantly
and your soul will always be joyful.” Pierre
Damascene, quoted in the 4th story from Stories of a Russian Pilgrim
c) The Jesus Prayer – A Christian Pilgrim – the
Philokalia[1] “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me!” the short version of “Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
The key to all
of this is the sanctified imagination – that magnificent capacity in each and
every one of us that God graciously gave to us to reach out for Him!
But at the end
of it all is this one astounding reality – God wants to reveal Himself to us –
wants us to look for and find Him – He wants to be found – wants to be sought
after. He tells that if we will desire
Him He will be found by us!
So in this
Advent season get in touch with your deep desire to know and be known by God
and take time to be present to Him and listen to Him. Take time.
This Sanctuary
is always available to you. We celebrate
Mass ever Thursday! Come – lean in –
Advent to God as He continuously advent to you.
Let’s Pray . . .
[1] The Philokalia (Gk. φιλοκαλία
"love of the beautiful/good") is a collection of texts by masters of
the Eastern Orthodox,
hesychast tradition, writing from the fourth to the fifteenth
centuries on the disciplines of Christian prayer and a life dedicated to God. The work was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of
[1] The Philokalia (Gk. φιλοκαλία
"love of the beautiful/good") is a collection of texts by masters of
the Eastern Orthodox,
hesychast tradition, writing from the fourth to the fifteenth
centuries on the disciplines of Christian prayer and a life dedicated to God. The work was compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of