Last Sunday
Dear friends in Christ. Today we have come to the end of the present Church Year—only this week remains in it. In this present but concluding Church Year we have again heard of our Lord Jesus’ life and work for our salvation; we have again heard the doctrines which He preached and entrusted to His Church to proclaim into all the world for the salvation of people. Next Sunday, we will begin to hear it all over again—the same events of Jesus’ life for us and our salvation and the same doctrines. We can never hear these same things enough! The devil with his temptations, the world with its siren call to follow it and its ways and thought, and our own sinful nature all work together to try to destroy our faith, keep battering its foundations. That’s why we need to hear it all again, continually. That’s why we constantly need to hear of Jesus and His saving work for us!
On top of that, our life and situation keeps changing. This year’s events from our Lord’s life and His teachings struck us differently than they did in past years; and as we hear them again next year they will strike us differently than this year. Not only because our situation changes but also because, by the grace and blessing of the Holy Spirit, we are growing in the faith! By the work of the Holy Spirit we are piecing together, and all the more clearly seeing how all these events in our Lord’s life and all His teachings fit together. As we keep “making these connections” the Holy Spirit, in grace, will again lead us in the new Church Year to see all the more clearly the beauty of the Christian faith; He will deepen and strengthen our faith and love of the Lord as we are regularly here at church and faithfully studying His word; and He will prepare us for new blessings in the next Church Year.
1. Our readings today teach us of the certainty of the Last Day—that the present world as we know it will end with Jesus’ return in glory to judge. Just a few verses before our Gospel, Jesus says [Mt. 24.42; 25.31]: Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming, and shortly afterward says: When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Of course, our Gospel is the call to be ready for the Lord, that is, that whenever He may come He may find us waiting for Him in true faith so that He may bring us to heaven.
The teaching of Jesus’ return—and this time in glory and as Judge—is not some obscure point of doctrine. We confess it in the Creeds of the Church—the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian. Jesus’ return was part of the preaching of the apostles. It was a main topic in Paul’s writing to the Thessalonians—part of which serves as our text: Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So long story short—Jesus will return again in glory as judge on a day known to Him but not to us. For us that means: may we be ready for His return, whenever it may be; ready by faith in Him as our Savior from sin, death, devil and hell.
Notice what St. Paul in our text calls the day of Jesus’ return, Judgment Day, the Last Day: he calls it the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord that is a phrase used often by the OT prophets to describe the time that the glory of the Lord would be especially prominent as God, in fulfillment of prophecy, directly intervenes in history. It could either be a time of wrath or grace. Now there is only one day of the Lord left—and that’s the Last Day. This day the final “piece” of our salvation is put into place—the resurrection of the dead, the day that death is undone. St. Paul puts it this way elsewhere [1 Co 15.26]: The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
So yes, it is absolutely certain that this day, the day of the Lord, is coming. All of human history is marching toward it, a definite certain end to time and the world as we know it. And why? The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. Jesus conquered and destroyed death. Death cannot remain. Precisely on the Last Day Jesus, the Victor over death and the grave, will come and call forth all the dead from their graves. Death will then be undone; it will have to surrender its victims!
To deny that there will be a Last Day, a day in which Jesus comes in glory to judge, a day in which all who ever lived—be they alive when He comes or be their bodies raised from the tomb and reunited with their souls—all will stand before Jesus to be judged—to deny that is to deny Jesus and His saving work. That Jesus will come on the Last Day as Judge of the living and the dead is part and parcel of the Christian message because it is tied up with His destroying death.
But just because Jesus’ return in glory as Judge is certain does not mean that we know when it will be. That’s why St. Paul here writes: Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Yes, we need to know that Jesus will return—but since no one, except God Himself, knows when, you have no need to have anything written to you. It is neither necessary nor edifying to speculate and predict the secrets that God has hidden. So long story short—know that Jesus is coming again as Judge, but just carry on with your Christian life; don’t worry about it/ trying to figure out when. Even if you figured out the exact day, hour and second—so what? What difference would it make? Would you right before then “arise and trim your lamp” and before live a life of sin? What does that say about your faith—or lack thereof—and your slavery to sin and devil? Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
We have no need to have anything written to us about the time and hour Jesus will come, how much longer it will be, the conditions of the world; but His coming is certain: For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. We know two things—Jesus’ coming is certain but its time is uncertain. Knowing these two things keeps us faithfully watching and greeting each new day with, “Are you the one in which My Savior returns and undoes/ destroys death and brings me to heaven?” This certainty, that the day of the Lord will come, keeps us from drowsiness in the faith, from failing to watch; and that it will come like a thief in the night keeps us of obsessing about it and trying to determine if this or that has to happen first. Instead by each natural or man-made disaster—war, strife among nations; by each fluke in nature---floods, famines, drought, disease, eclipses, etc. we will be reminded that this world is coming to an end and of Jesus’ return. We will use all these type events as a call to repentance and faith so that we will be ready and awake for Jesus’ return in glory.
But the unbelievers and scoffers will ignore these calls to repent—not only in Scripture but also from these events in nature and the world that God has intended to use to remind us “to get our house in order” since the world is ending. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. The unbelievers and scoffers think everything will continue on as it always has; they reject the Lord’s intervention in human history; they reject Jesus as true God who will come to be our Judge. They dismiss not only Scripture but also the signs God put in nature as a reminder that like an creaking old barn the world is about to collapse; the signs in the world and nature are like labor pains—the baby is coming soon—it’s inevitable—but the exact time is unknown. So is Jesus’ return.
2. Those who reject the Lord Jesus will, at His return, not escape; once Jesus returns there is nothing they can do to save themselves—no last second conversions; the time of grace has passed. But for the Christian, the one looking for and longing for Jesus’ return, the one who by faith kept watch for Jesus, the one who lived that life of repentance and faith in Jesus, to us St. Paul writes in our text: But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. That certainty of Jesus’ return is a good thing for us Christians.
Dear Christian, we are not in darkness. We have been brought to saving faith; the Holy Spirit has enlightened us with that saving knowledge of God. We, as Christians, look for and yearn for the Last Day, the day of Jesus’ return—the day we will finally be with our Lord in heaven in soul and body. Again, we do not consume ourselves trying to figure out when it will be; we don’t hold to kook interpretations of Scripture trying to figure out what God has hidden. But because Jesus is returning in judgment—and we know that in the certainty of faith—and in that faith and love of our Savior, what we do indeed do is guard our faith. We stay awake and alert looking for and rooting out of our hearts and lives any and everything that tries to turn our gaze off Christ, that tries to destroy our faith, that keeps us from watching for Jesus’ return, that dulls our spiritual senses. In other words, because the Last Day and Jesus’ return in glory as Judge is certain, we heed His words in today’s Gospel: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. We watch our hearts on guard for sin. We find ourselves regularly and faithfully in church and in the word because we don’t want the world dictating/ forming our minds, attitudes, beliefs. Instead, we want the Holy Spirit doing that in the word and Christ strengthening our faith by His body and blood.
So what does it mean that for us as Christians who are all children of light, children of the day? The apostle continues: So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. We take St. Paul’s words here seriously as we watch for Jesus’ return. We are Christians; we have been baptized; we indeed are children of light, children of the day; but, we dare not think that we can take it easy and slack off in the matters of faith because we’re not yet in heaven: we still have our old sinful nature in us that works together with the devil and the sinful world around us to destroy faith, to turn us away from Christ, to dull our spiritual senses. That’s why we need always to hear and take to heart what St. Paul says here: So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. Elsewhere St. Paul puts it this way [Ph. 2.12]: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. We, dear Christian, know what’s at stake—eternity in either heaven or hell. We stay awake, then, waiting for Jesus’ return, as strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we live a godly life daily fighting against sin and hoping daily for Jesus’ return. Our lives will be marked by faith, love and hope. Our text: since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. With the breastplate of faith in Christ, we receive the forgiveness of sin and by this we comfort ourselves against all the pangs of conscience that would drive us to despair; through this faith we stand in Jesus’ holy and perfect righteousness before God’s judgment. This faith shows itself now in this life as we live a life of good works—out of thanksgiving and love for Christ who saved us. And we have the hope of salvation—the trust and certainty that God will keep us in the faith, sustaining our faith and love.
We now live in the glorious certainty that the Lord is faithful to His word and promise and will keep us steadfast in the faith, as we look forward, longingly to His return on the Last Day. Ours is a joyful watching. INJ Amen