Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
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Have you ever noticed how often it seems to happen
that when you have to stay awake for a certain reason …
the more important it is,
and the harder you try,
the more trouble you have keeping yourself awake?
I can recall from my babysitting days,
how awfully hard it was some of those nights
to keep my eyes open.
I always felt it was important
that I not “go to sleep on the job,”
so unless the parents had specifically said something like,
“we won’t be in until two or three o’clock;
please feel free to go to sleep,”
well, I pretty much felt obligated not to.
But I can remember many times,
especially after TV stations had signed off for the night –
remember when TV stations used to sign off
and not broadcast for several hours?! –
anyway, I would be sitting there on the couch with no more TV,
telling myself “Stay awake, stay awake,”
while my eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
And the more things I did to revive myself:
walk around, get something to eat, whatever …
the tireder I got,
until finally, sleep overcame me
and the next thing I heard would be
the key turning in the lock,
and I’d jump up with a terribly guilty conscience
for my inability to remain at my duty.
But by far the worst,
is trying to stay awake on the road between San Angelo and Midland.
Have any of you ever driven that stretch?
In the eight years that I lived in that part of the world,
that road defeated me just about every time.
It didn’t matter what time of day it was;
didn’t matter what time I got up in the morning
or what time I had gone to bed the night before;
it didn’t matter how many cups of coffee I had had,
or how much traffic there was or wasn’t.
I found it almost impossible to stay awake
on that incredibly boring stretch of highway.
And now matter how I tried to entertain myself …
drinking a Coke, singing old gospel hymns at the top of my lungs,
even pinching myself …
nothing seemed to work particularly well.
The harder I tried to stay awake,
the harder it became to do so.
And then it occurred to me,
this same principle seems to apply
in other areas of life as well …
Like sometimes, when you’re reading,
the harder you try to concentrate
the less of it sticks with you …
Or, ironically, sometimes if you need rest,
the harder you try to go to sleep,
the wider awake you become!
Often, it seems,
our strongest human efforts
end up being counterproductive.
But, then, if that’s true,
how can we stay awake and alert,
taking heed, keeping watch, looking up,
all those different ways Jesus describes it?
How do we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ,
whether it’s his coming at Christmastime,
or his coming again in glory?
One of the things I noticed in studying this passage from Luke,
that hadn’t much occurred to me before …
is that even though Jesus does tell the people
to take heed and to watch at all times,
never does he imply that this means
we ought to quit whatever we’re doing,
sit back and fold our hands,
and wait passively for whatever is going to come.
If anything, he seems to assume that life will go on
much as it has before.
He simply warns his hearers,
“lest [their] hearts be weighed down
with dissipation and drunkenness,
and the worries of this life.”
Jesus tells people to listen and to watch,
but never does he say just to sit and wait.
Which leads me to a startling sort of conclusion,
and it’s this:
It seems that we will do out best watching,
and staying awake and alert,
if we do it in the midst of everyday life,
in the midst of what we’re already supposed to be doing.
Now I know that’s true
in the case of the examples that I began with,
about literally staying awake.
When I’m on the road,
if I’m listening to my Walkman,
or if I can tune in a good radio station,
or, best of all, if I have someone in the car with me
to carry on a conversation with,
it’s no trouble at all to stay awake.
It’s only when I’m sitting there dwelling on it,
telling myself “don’t go to sleep, stay awake!”
that I can’t possibly do it.
How interesting to think that that same sort of thing
might also apply to our journey of faith.
That we lose sight of what’s really important,
not only if we let our hearts be weighed down with other stuff,
but also if we focus on the important things
too hard or too single-mindedly,
and exclude other aspects of our real lives.
Looking at the Christmas season that is upon us,
we can see that it’s easy
for our hearts possibly to become weighed down
with dissipation and drunkenness –
too much shopping and too many parties –
and to be weighed down with troubles of this life –
so much food to cook, how much can we afford to spend –
However, those of us who like to complain about
the commercialism and busy-ness of the sesason,
as you have heard me do! …
need to realize that it also is not appropriate
simply to sit back and watch and wait
for God to bestow Christ upon us.
To me, this is what the season of Advent is all about …
it is a time of waiting and preparing for Christ’s coming
and for getting back the balance in that process.
It means remembering that Christmas is the birth of Christ,
and that’s what we’re watching for,
and it is appropriate to ask the question,
since it’s Jesus’ birthday,
how much are we going to spend on presents for each other?
and to figure out,
what do we tell our children about Santa Claus,
and how does that relate to Jesus …
But once we have done that,
and asked the faith questions, and taken them seriously,
then we need to relax and to enjoy
and to live the Christmas season as it comes to us,
not always to sit back and be critical
of the ways it gets misused and abused.
It means that we will buy and exchange presents,
and we will also remember that the greatest gift of all
is the one God gave to us.
It means we will decorate and prepare our homes for the coming of guests,
as long as we remember also to prepare our hearts
for the coming of Christ.
It means that it’s perfectly all right to enjoy singing
“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
as long as it get balanced with
“Away in a Manger.”
Now another thing that we do in Advent,
particularly, it seems, this first Sunday in Advent,
is, we talk about the belief that Christ’s coming at Christmas
will someday, somehow, be repeated.
During these four weeks that we
prepare for and remember Christ’s first coming among us,
we also recall his promise that
some day there will be a second coming.
And we remind ourselves that we must also
watch, and take heed, and prepare for that.
And that’s a little trickier, because
whereas we know that Christmas will come every December 25th,
and we can pretty much schedule and plan for it …
we don’t know when Christ will return,
so we have to be in a kind of perpetual state of readiness.
That’s what Jesus is talking about
when he tells the people that
that day will come upon them suddenly, like a trap …
and that when certain signs appear,
they must look up, for their redemption is drawing near.
I would argue that we need to anticipate Christ’s second coming
with much the same attitude I suggested we need
as we approach Christmas.
That we do need to watch, to take heed,
to stay awake, to prepare …
but that we also need to live responsible lives in the interim.
My pastor when I was growing up,
had a brass plaque on the wall in his office
that said, “God is watching, so give him a good show.”
Now knowing Stewart,
I wasn’t ever sure whether that meant,
“behave well and be sure that God sees you at it,”
or, “do something crazy so that
God will really have something interesting to look at.”
I always thought it was kind of a goofy thing
for a minister to have on the wall …
but there really is some truth to it.
I mean, yes, Christ is coming again,
and we need to prepare for that in whatever way we can …
But God is also with us and watching us here and now,
and has called us to do certain things in our lives,
and we can’t ignore those things or put them on hold
in order to sit back and wait.
Christ is coming …
now, and again.
Let us watch and prepare;
let us also celebrate with our lives, right now.
Amen.