What Time It Is

It was Palm Sunday three years ago. Some of you may remember the day. It was the year Daylight Savings Time began on that Sunday. I thought I had set my alarm correctly. But the next thing I knew I woke up and looked at the clock. And then I said this prayer, “O. my. Lord.” That was the beginning of the prayer. . .and the end, because I didn’t have any more words or any more time. It was, I think 8:11am, and many of you were waiting for me to walk in the sanctuary. I took a luxurious minute and half to hastily splash water on my face and get dressed; then I flew to the church, threw on my robe, and tried act as calm and prepared as I could. But there was no faking it that morning.

It was one of my worst fears come true. In the past I had nightmares about it happening, and it finally did. But I’m not only one to fall prey to not knowing what time it is. You have too, I bet. It’s always a bad sign when you look at your watch in horror and shout, “Oh no, is that what time it is?!”. “Look at the time!”

Some of us seem better than others at living with a small margin of time. You know who I’m talking about. They are the ones who just seem to be starting to get ready when everyone else is already at the dinner. Although they less time than a sane person needs, they remember at the late hour that the plants need watered and the cat fed and all the burners checked to make sure they’re turned off. And you are in the car saying the Serenity Prayer as the minutes tick down.

I have lived in close proximity to some world class professionals when it comes to habitually running late. My sister, Kristin, when we were kids, raised the bar at an early age. I’m not sure I ever experienced the first 15 minutes of Sunday school when mom was driving all five kids there. I have since known and known well some other procrastinators of whom I shall say no more, in order to protect my own skin.

It’s not a coincidence that some of the activities we most enjoy are ones in which time is not so urgent. In these things we can forget about time, for a time. Watch a baseball game, they don’t keep time. Go play with your friends, just be home by supper. One of the things Jenn and I used to do with her sisters was go floating down the Juniata in tubes. It took all day. You wore sun screen but not a watch. It didn’t matter.

But those kind of things are remembered fondly because they seem to have a timeless quality. They stand out and are preserved because all other moments are being swept away in time.

If someone asks you what “Advent” means, “Watch the Time,” is not a bad answer.
Wake up! It’s later than you think! What should we wake up about?

“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers. . .” Romans 13.11

In my life, sometimes it feels like I have all the time in the world. I think about the stream of my life and the passage of years. . .all the people I have known and the places I”ve been. It all seems so abundant, like my time is a renewable resource.

But it’s not. No, no. Because the longer you are floating down the river on your tube the faster the current gets. You are going someplace. You can’t float back up stream. You are moving in one direction, irrevocably. And God works with us and through the events and people that we meet along the way to work out our salvation and grow in it. Some days, salvation feels like cool water and warm sunshine and a lazy afternoon. But don’t let that fool you. Time seduces us on.

“Precious time is slipping away. You know you’re only King for day. That beautiful girl, she’s gonna die some day. Precious time is slipping away.” Van Morrison

Sometimes my boys, unasked for, blurt out to me, “Hey, you’re an old man.” And I say, “You may be right. But if you keep talking like that, you’re not going to have that problem.”

Salvation is nearer to us than it once was.

And if salvation is nearer to us, so too, is judgment. Judgment day is that much closer.
There’s a sense of urgency is Paul’s words. When those first believers in Rome read this letter, maybe, they were startled and alarmed at the tone they sensed in Paul’s voice.

“Wake up. . .lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and immorality; not in quarreling and jealousy.”


Get rid of the sin! Get rid of the anger! Get rid of the bitterness and the blaming! Cause they take their toll. They are not our friends. We’ll wear out and waste away trying to carry them around with us. Stop telling yourself that tomorrow or next week you’ll get your act together. Today. Today. Tomorrow is not promised to us.

Jennifer and I were rudely and brutally reminded of this truth last Sunday. Nothing prepared us. Nothing told us in advance that this day was going to be different. Nobody told us that Sherry wasn’t going to be floating with us anymore.

Start giving now. Don’t have regrets about your money and your stuff. Start forgiving now. Don’t let hurts fester and bitterness set in. Start loving now. It’s seems pretty obvious to say, but your people are more important than that television you watch and they’re more important than that job you go to. But they won’t be there forever. Love is the only thing we take with us.

There’s more I want to say but . . . look at the time.

A King to Be Good


Israel didn’t always have a king. The casual reader of the Old Testament will soon discover that Israel was led by Judges for a significant period of their history. The Judges, both men and women, were wise sages, effective politicians, and bold military commanders. The tradition of Judges was working quite well. That is, until some of the Israelites observed that most of the powerful nations with which they had dealings all boasted monarchs. So, not to be outdone, the Israelites began clamoring for a King of their own.

God’s response to that was- King? What do you need a king for? I am your king.

To make a long story short; God gave in and appointed King Saul and the monarchy continued for many years. During those years it was clear that a King should be more than a figurehead. And a King should be more than a military leader. A King should be wise. Solomon was legend as a poet, philosopher, and sage. A King should be upright in heart, as was David, despite his obvious failures. In Israel at least, the King was in some sense, God’s representative, not unlike a priest.

That tradition of a monarchy filled with divine purpose was continued in the Christian tradition. In France and England especially, divine right was invoked to back all the decisions of the kings and queens. Now matter how wrong or brutal their decisions were, there was always an understanding that they were acting on God’s behalf.

Our country was birthed in rebellion against a King. And so, we haven’t carried even the vestiges of respect for that tradition and history of the monarchy. We don’t have a king. The President of the United States is a powerful leader, the most powerful in world, but he’s not king. He is the head politician, the commander-in-chief. But not king.

So how can we understand this notion that Christ is our King? At first I thought this might just be too remote or arcane for Americans raised in democracy. But I believe in a way, our situation resembles those ancient Israelites under the Judges. God wants to be our King, but he has a rival for our hearts allegiance. The rival is us.

If freedom is the supreme value in our American culture, then obedience to authority is often seen very negatively. Nobody is going to tell me what to do. We all want to be Commander-in-Chief of our own little kingdoms. Our kingdoms are the extent to which our will is effectively done, and we guard our kingdoms jealously.

John Ortberg describes a skit they did once at his church about a character named Pastor Howitzer. He was “what General Patton might have been if Patton had gone into church work.” He showed a visiting couple the organizational chart of the church. It looked like this:

Me

Everybody else


Recently they had done a reorganization at Pastor Howiztzer’s church. The new organizational chart looked like this:


ME
↓

Everybody else



We all want to be in control. Weddings are great events for this. Every wedding has a control freak, generally known as the “Mother of the Bride” – MOTB for short. At one wedding the organist was having a little fun by weaving familiar pop tunes into elaborate arrangements, like the Star Wars theme. In this case, the MOTB beamed as she walked down the aisle to rapturous music – she wouldn’t have beamed so brightly had she recognized the music as a variation on “The Old Gray Mare.”

I remember one wedding when the MOTB was not happy with anything. The flowers were wrong, the candles were too white. The music was too loud. She had a few suggestions for me too. She said if I didn’t get a decent-looking pair of shoes, she would have me replaced. And that was my wife’s mother on the day of our wedding.


You may be familiar with the popular billboard messages; maybe you’ve seen this one:

If you want to make me laugh, tell me your plans. – God


We must surrender control. Why? Because we are not God. It wouldn’t hurt to remind ourselves of that, say, about once a day. “I am not God. I am not God.” The reality is that we were all born into someone else’s kingdom. We need to give up the pretense that we are in control. Surrendering to Jesus is saying yes to reality.

Consider the two thieves hanging with Jesus at Calvary. Think about their situation. They didn’t want to be there. They had lived their lives as criminals, flouting the laws and conventions of society. They lived life on their terms. Nobody could tell them what to do. Until finally, they flouted once too much. They were seized, tried, convicted, and sentenced. And then they were punished. They finally had to surrender to their reality. It doesn’t get any more “real” than being nailed to a cross. They were probably famous for years among their street criminal brethren. They had a lot of street cred. But you can only get crucified once. And street cred isn’t really of much use in the big picture.

Interestingly enough, though, only one of the two seemed willing to surrender to the reality of the situation. The other continued to deny wrongdoing. He was still blaming others. He blamed Jesus. “Aren’t you the great Messiah? Well, save us then!”

His partner, however, was sobered by the situation. He was humbled, even.

“Jesus, remember me when the reality of your Kingdom comes to full light.”

That criminal was saved by that request. His surrender finally brought him the freedom he sought.

We don’t have to wait until death is imminent until we surrender. In fact, it is very much better if we do it sooner. Life is richer when we serve the One who is really in charge.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. . .all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

You’ve heard the phrase, “It’s good to be king.” It’s also true that it takes a king to be good. What I mean is, it’s only by surrendering to Christ the King that we can be transformed by his power to become the creatures we are meant to be in the kingdom. When we do that, then the King becomes the uniter of his people and the intermediary in all human relationships. We begin to see each other and relate to each other through Christ.

We stop using each other as objects and start honoring each other as fellow subjects of the King. As the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed, “The Lord is our righteousness.” 23.6

Some people find it hard to believe that everything really revolves around this overfamiliar deity named Jesus. Is this bearded fellow really the key to life?

Yes. He is before all things. In him all things hold together. In everything he will have supremacy. Through him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself. This is reality. Will you surrender to this reality in your life today?