“It’s Time To Get Dressed” Rom.
Introduction: Most of us have had one of those mornings of
panic, haven’t we? You know the ones
when either the alarm clock failed to go off or someone, thinking he was more
awake than he actually was, turned it off to close his eyes for just another
five minutes. Then, an hour later he
looks over at the clock and is suddenly shocked into an awakened state. In an instant the sleeper throws off the
covers and runs through the house screaming out the time, and telling everyone that
they need to wake-up and get dressed. He
knows that if his family does not heed his urgent plea they may face tragic
consequences.
I.
What Time Is It? (vv.11-12a)
The usual response I get from my children
when I run through the house shouting for them to wake-up and get dressed is,
“Why, what time is it?” For everyone
who enjoys a little spiritual slumber in the bed of cozy apathy, beneath the
warm covers complacency, that remains the all important question. What time is it? How much time do we have to get ready for
Jesus? Can we go on sleeping just a
little longer?
A. Each of the last three Sundays have
emphasized that the day and hour of Christ’s coming is near and getting ever
nearer. Since Christ first came to be
lifted up for the revelation of God’s glory and the salvation of all people we
have been living in the last days of which Isaiah spoke when, “the mountain
of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains..” These
are the days when, “all the nations
flow to it, and many peoples come, and say: "Come, let us go up to
the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach
us his ways and that we may walk in his paths."” We
are in the days, when, “the law goes out of
For some of us it is simply not enough to
know that Christ is coming soon or that His coming for us is as near as the
moment of our death. We want to know the
exact time of His appearing.
You see this watch? My brother-in-law gave it to me last
Christmas. I think it is a beautiful watch,
but there is one problem with it. It has
no numbers and very few marks to show the hours and minutes. Whenever anyone asks me what time it is, I
always have to respond, “It’s about
B. The
exact time cannot be known. Jesus said, "But
concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven…
Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” (Matt. 24:36,42) The reason that we are not told the exact day
or hour when Christ is coming is so that we will not fall into a spiritual
slumber. Instead we are called to a life
in which we remain awake and active, ready and prepared for His coming at any
time. It’s enough to be able to say it’s
about time. The time when Christ came to
save us has passed and the time for his coming again to bring it to completion
is on getting nearer.
C. Like the people to whom Paul wrote, we may
not know the exact day and hour, but we do know that the night is giving way to
the day, and the [kairos], critical time, for the
Lord’s coming, is closer than ever before. Listen to the words of our epistle spoken to
us here today: “..you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake
from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The
night is far gone; the day is at hand.”
(vv.11-12a)
Already at His first coming Christ drew
near to save us. He was Immanuel, God
with us. His first coming in humility –
being born in our flesh, suffering under the law, dying on the cross for our
punishment, being buried for our sin, and rising again in victory – secured our
salvation. His continual coming to us in
the Word and Sacraments has brought us into that salvation, so that we have each
been saved from the moment we first believed.
But now Paul talks about our salvation coming nearer yet. The completion of our salvation will be when
Christ returns to deliver us from every evil and purge us of all sin. On that day He will come near to us in all
His power and change us in the twinkling of an eye, and He will gather us into
the eternal joys of his glorious kingdom.
Like the people to whom Paul wrote who
were bogged down with worldly concerns many of us seem to have lost our sense
of eager anticipation for Christ’s return.
The world of work and school, deadlines and obligations, debts and taxes
has caused us to lose all track of time, and has robbed us of our excitement over
what will soon be happening for us. We
have allowed the constant drone of this world’s faithless murmur to lull us
into a spiritual slumber. Today, let that alarm clock sound! “Hark!
A thrilling voice is sounding!
‘Christ is near,’ we hear it say!” So let us throw off the covers and shout for
joy because the night is gone and the day of our Lord is at hand! We know what time it is and that the hour has
come for us to wake up and walk in the light of the Lord. Christ, our salvation, is drawing nearer for
us every day!
II. Because Christ Is Near It Is Time For
Us To Get Dressed. (vv.12b-14)
A. The first thing we are called to do is to take
off the clothes of darkness. As our hymn says: “Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding! ‘Christ is near,’ we hear it say. ‘Cast away the works of darkness, All you children of the day!”
Someone once told me that they had a rule
to never do anything that they would not want to be caught doing at the moment
Jesus returns. Many of us know how
embarrassing it can be to have someone come to the door and catch us half
asleep in our “jamies” with a nasty case of morning
breath and a misshapen bed head. In the
same way there are some things we wear, rags that have become quite comfortable
in the darkness of this world’s sin, in which we really would not want Jesus to
see us, right?
So many things we wear are things we do in
darkness, things we would never want anyone to see, certainly not Christ.
Think about some of the things you we
wear. Do we use his name, “Jesus
Christ!” as if he really weren’t right here in the room to answer and join in
the conversation? Do we act in the
backseat of the car on dates in a way we wouldn’t if Jesus were in the front
seat? Do we go behind a friend’s back
with gossip or undercut him at work in ways that we never would if Jesus was
there watching? The problem is that
Jesus is not only coming near, He is near!
He is in the room to hear his name used wrongly! He is in the front seat of the car with
us! He is in there when we betray our
friends! The night has gone and the day
has come! Jesus is near, and is drawing
nearer! Now is the time to wake-up and “cast off the
works of darkness” (v.12b).
B. Now, the apostle reminds us, is the time to “put on the
armor of light” (v.12b) Now is the
time to get dressed up for Jesus and to put on our best for Him to see. We want to behave decently and to do all the
good works that God had prepared in advance for us to do. We want to live lives worthy of our calling
and keep in step with the Holy Spirit.
We want all that we do, in thought, word and deed to be to the glory and
honor of Christ our Savior. We want to
walk in the light of Christ, to be renewed by His Word and feast at His
table. We want our bodies to serve as
living sacrifices for Him, and to use every opportunity to do good to others
and especially to those of the household of faith.
III. Christ Is Here To Clothe You In The
Armor Of Light. (Gal. 3:27)
A. The wonderful news of the Gospel is that we
are not left to dress ourselves while in the dark. On more than one occasion I have attempted to
dress myself in a darkened room. Not
wanting to wake anyone I reached into the closet and pulled out what I thought
was a matching outfit. What a disaster!
It is equally foolish for us to think
that we can spiritually dress ourselves for the Lord! Again and again we would only reach into the
same sinful heart and pull out nothing but the filthy rags of the deeds of
darkness. Paul’s exhortation to put on
the armor of light and to put on Christ is not something that we are commanded
to do for ourselves by trial and error until perhaps someday we get it
right. It’s not something we ought to
do, but keep on failing to do. Scripture
is certain about this, unless we are first clothed with Christ we are only
groping around in the darkness. We can’t
find Him in the closet of our hearts, and dress ourselves with Him.
B. In His letter to the Galatians Paul explains
that being dressed for the Lord is something that Jesus, Himself, does for
us. He says, “For as many of you as were baptized
into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal.
3:27) The apostle assures us that we are,
already, fully dressed for the day of our salvation and for Christ’s coming through
our baptism. You are already dressed and
ready. Everything that
Jesus accomplished by His first coming has been given to you in your baptism. You are clothed with Christ, and are seen by
God as righteous and beautifully dressed as the bride of His Son. You are the people who live in the light of
Christ. By the working of the Holy
Spirit you are children of the light who do the works of light for the sake of
others. In your baptism you were united
with Christ so that He now lives in you and is seen by the world in you.
This season of waiting does not need to
be a morning of panic. Because we have
been awakened to faith by the Holy Spirit and have put on Christ in our baptism
we are able to wake-up each day and say:
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in
it!” And this day is better than all
that have come before, “for [our] salvation is nearer to us now than when
we first believed. [In Christ] the night
is gone and the day has come.” So let us
wake-up and get dressed because our Lord is coming. Amen!