What Time Have You Chosen? – Advent 1

Luke 21:20 – 38 - November 28th, 2021

The Lord Be With You.

A parable on the Gospel …

There once was a man who was a workaholic. He spent every day pursuing his desired success. It didn’t matter if there was a weekend or even a holiday, one could always find this man working towards some business goal he thought he had to achieve. He was one of the top people in his industry and received many awards but he always seemed to convince himself that there was more. That what he did was not enough. When he was asked if he was ever going to visit other places, other countries, other sights, take some time off, he always responded that he would once he had gotten done what he felt he had to do. But, when he would finish with one goal, he always found more to do. Found another. So, this man spent his whole life on earthly business pursuits forever convincing himself that one day he would take the time to slow down and visit those places he had always read about or heard about from others. Except, that day never arrived. He died without ever having done any of the things that he thought, deep down, he had wanted to do but put off. He never seemed to find the time to experience the other side of the world. The other side of life.

Here ends the parable.

Verse 32 says, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” I focused on this verse because not only is it an end times prophecy but it’s also pointing to each of us that seems to wake up at the end of the week wondering what happened to the prior days. Time flies, you know. But we can live on autopilot so much so that the world passes by and sometimes what we wanted to happened veers off course and we end up in a ditch of our own making.

It’s kind of like the guy who was standing in a motor home dealership when a motor home was towed in for repairs. The front of the home was badly damaged. The man was curious as to how the motor home had gotten so mangled, so he walked over to the service department to ask. The manager explained that the owner of the motor home had been driving on the interstate and had set the cruise control and gone back to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. The owner mused that there are just so many things to remember and some people are short a few screws.

Now, Jesus wasn’t speaking in specifics about what’s gonna happen to the world when the end time comes but, more specifically, to each of us when our own end time comes. What have we done and what have we left undone? Have we paid attention to the many signs that God has put in our path that He wants us to get done? Are we always looking towards the heavens for a notion of His grace on our surroundings? You see, we all have our own time table that we’ll live out and it’s what we do with that time we have left that is to be our concern.

I’ve called this message, “What Time Have You Chosen?” because I believe it’s paramount that we take stock of what we do with what we have been given that’ll make the difference in how we can even be able to recognize if some of those signs spoken about here are even coming to pass. Luke was written sometime in 90 AD so the people that Luke was writing to had already witnessed the fall of Jerusalem. That was in 70 AD when the Jews, of that time, rose up against Rome but were crushed and, as a result, the whole city was destroyed. It was so bad that one of the Roman generals, Titus as reported by Jewish historian, Josephus, became ill because of all that he saw. Daniel 9:27 and 12:11 foretold of the downfall in a similar manner. Desolation. Destruction. Death.

So it’s easy to look at all that and say, well that was then, this is now. But, have you ever walked the streets in East Houston? South Philadelphia? South Chicago? Some of the burrows in New York? Same today much as the desolation was 2,000 plus years ago. Gangs running neighborhoods. Home and businesses in flames. Police become the fall guys. Politicians gaining power in those neighborhoods by playing on people’s fears. Mom and pop stores fleeing because they only experience crime and destruction. Children getting cut down in the prime of their lives. Any different today than yesterday? Not at all. If there’s something we humans seem to have perfected is to repeat the mistakes of the past and then wonder why the same results happen.

So, Jesus is talking to us today. He’s saying that we have to pay attention to all that’s going on around us because we never know what tomorrow will bring from God or our own lives. Verse 24, “On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.” Folks, that isn’t some abstract saying. It’s our sea of life that Jesus is talking about. It’s where we put to shore to live out our days. It’s the boat we ride in that takes us from one place to the other. The boat is our outlook towards the gifts that God has given us. The shore is where we land on how much we hold onto the belief in the faith we’ve been given.

But Jesus is speaking to us today. He’s saying don’t be buried under the bad news that we hear and see every day on our chosen media. He’s saying to put all that aside and keep it in context because He’s got this. He’s saying in Verse 34, “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap” because He knows how easy it is to get caught in that worldly trap that makes you start to believe that this world has surely gone to Hell. Dissipation means nausea and the drunkenness is our attempt to dull all that we see and hear. Jesus is saying to keep looking towards heaven for surety because that’s the only place to look to keep your cup running over with the grace, the mercy and the light of God.

This passage is asking you what time have you chosen because it’s your choice, your freedom, your free-will that can determine whether you’ll allow Satan to come in to rule your lives with fear or you’ll let the Good News of the Gospel keep you sane. One way is through prayer. Another is to take a look at a page or two of the bible. Doing each one of those will often help to guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus through the peace of God which transcends all understanding. It can be a learning process. It can be a challenge though. But all challenges require us to step up to the plate. Of course some challenges might seem harder than others. Like the one the Native American Indian told to a tourist who was standing next to him while he was sending smoke signals. The Indian answers the tourist question: “The most challenging message I have ever sent?” “It’s raining like crazy here!”

You know, even Jesus grappled with challenges. He had many that required His time. So He had to do the same thing as I suggested, prayer and conversation since He didn’t have the bible to read. The last verse, in this passage, has Jesus escaping the throngs and spending the night on the Mount of Olives. He did that to reconnect with the Father so that He could face each day anew. You think we’re stronger than He? It says it in the preceding verse, “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” At least I can do it in my living room. So can you.

But, it seems that just living for God day to day is not enough. Many want to know when the final trumpet will sound. Many people in the past have sold all they owned and went to the top of a hill to wait it out. There have been movements that convinced people that their leader had all the answers. Some bible numerology of the sorts. When the lies of those leaders came about, the people became depressed and committed suicide. It was just too much. We can fall victim to the same sorts of things.

I prefer to just be alert and ready but not all that anxious for that time because I figure I got a lot more to do in the here and now. A lot more people to tell the Good News too. I know I sometimes have a hard time finding two individual socks that match in the morning so it’s pretty much all I can do to remember to tell another of what I know. I hope there are some of you that can agree with me. My time is not God’s time.

Does the news of the day make me anxious? Absolutely. Ya gotta be living in total denial not to be affected by what’s going on but I also remember the past and what I’ve read of the distant past. The wars that have happened. The injustices that I read about. The evil of what one person can do to another. The ability of some to judge another person simply by what is seen on the outside. But I know that God’s the one in charge and I figure that He’s better equipped to handle all the machinations of His human creation that I am. So, even though I’m anxious by all that goes on around me, all that I see and hear, I can rest in the security that whatever is going to happen to me is under God’s control. I hope y’all can feel the same way.

This Sunday is the start of a brand new church year. It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Advent means, literally, “Coming”. It’s the start of the time when we can look each year to the coming of Jesus as a newborn babe. And even though we do this every year, we can celebrate His birth each year because we, ourselves, are reborn too. Each day that we have a conversation with the Father is our chance to be reborn into a newer understanding of the hopes and dreams that He has for us.

Each day that we tell the Good News to our neighbor, as we understand it, is the chance for a rebirth of our own understanding of how we stand with the Father. And each day that we can celebrate the birth of old is the chance that we can come to a new celebration of the birth of new relationships with many around us and maybe, just maybe, reconnect with those that have fallen outside of our attention. Lend a hand to those who are in need. Lend an ear to those who have questions. Lend a part of our lives so that others may know that they’re welcomed in the house that God built. Truly see past the outer shell of our neighbors to highlight the character, the one He designed, that’s in each of us.

Folks, Advent is our time to celebrate all that God has given us. It’s a time to celebrate the promises of Jesus and the fact that He’s always walking beside us. It’s a time to celebrate that we’ve been given the beautiful expression of our free-will to make that choice to follow Him. We can live this season each and every day. We can grab a hold of the understanding that He’s attempting to give us through a conversation and a prayer. You never know when your time is up. You never know when the end times will actually be here.

The man in the parable thought his days would last forever. Don’t we at some level? The man in the parable always found something to do in the business arena but never seemed to believe that the personal arena was as important. Do we? The man in the parable missed the opportunity to expand his life through other parts of his world or other parts of the people in his life because he limited his world only to that which he believed he could overcome. But his time was what overcame him.

Jesus is saying that our time is not God’s time and, as such, we need to experience all that God has put in our paths so that we can see the majesty that He created. When our heads are pointed down at this world then we cannot possibly see all that is around us. We get busy and we forget that part of our future is to live out the blessings that God has surrounded us with. We can miss the signs that Jesus was warning the disciples about because we’re focused on our own pursuits. We can remain in the muck and mire that is this broken world because we’re mistaken in the belief that we can fix what is inherently broken. We can ignore all those people that surround us, trying to lift us up, because we’re focused on our immediate need to be self-fulfilled.

The generation that Jesus is referring to is our generation that our will be done rather than God’s will be done and that results in our choices to deny the truth of the Gospels told by God and Jesus for the truth of mandates dictated by earthly leaders. Our generation makes choices to substitute God’s rule for our rule. Our generation says that we know better than God and Jesus by how we manipulate the Gospels to fit our agenda. Our generation pursues a path that says that we are God’s in that we can control how the earth revolves and evolves. That’s the generation Jesus is speaking about and our choices today reflect on what our children will tend to make for their choices.

We can choose to look for the sure signs of God’s good will. Or we can go home and live out our lives putting God on the back burner. Only to be listened to one day a week. We can choose to align our lives with our broken egos. Or we can finally realize that God sets the time tables for our own lives. We can choose to ignore the calling of Jesus for us to spread His Good News. Or we can tell someone we know. It’s your choice. Choose wisely. Something to think about! Something to pray about?

Can we pray? …

Father, we pray for your guidance. Help to lead us into new paths that help us to be the disciple we are and help those around us to see your grace and your mercy. Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that our days are filled with the joy that you’ve surrounded us with. Help us to turn away from all that is trying to convince us that this world is all there is. Help us to develop the character of a spirit filled person so that others may see your light. Be with us and keep us safe. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus the Christ.

And all God’s people said – Amen?!

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