23^rd Sunday after Pentecost

November 16, 2014

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Guide Us Waking, Guard Us Sleeping, O Lord

I don’t know when the world will end, but I can tell you that worlds have ended. I can tell you that worlds have ended as that broken son of darkness narrative plays itself out again and again. They are typical tales of loss and grief, disappointment and failure. They are sordid sagas of broken relationships, sin and shame. They are wanton webs of shattered dreams and hopes, where life seems bereft of all meaning. We know the world will end, but for us, in many respects, the world has already ended.

Everyday the world ends for someone. I don’t mean their physical death but that the physical and emotional environment in which they live is destroyed, the web of their relationships, their world becomes barren and desolate. The Day of the Lord is a thief, and we are its henchmen, we are the tools by which the world and the worlds of others are ripe for destruction. We say there is peace, but there is no peace. We say there are no labor pains, and yet the birth of the new world comes by blood and death. We have an appointment with destiny and it with either be in Adam, in eternal death, or in Christ, in eternal life. 

Since at least the 4^th c. Christians have been praying the song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis. During the Middle Ages, a bookend refrain was added, and can be found in our minor office of Compline [LSB 258]. It goes like this, “Guide us waking O Lord/and guard us sleeping/that awake we may watch with Christ/and asleep we may rest in peace.” It’s a prayer for the end of the day, for the end of our worlds, for the end of the world, and to take refuge in the promise we have of the new world that is ours in Christ.

Guide us waking O Lord that we may watch with Christ because through your Anointed One you have called us out of darkness into your marvelous light. The Spirit of Christ has enlightened us with Christ’s gifts. He alone has taken us sons of darkness and declared us sons of light. Jesus says, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light” [Jn 12:36]. Jesus is the light of the world. And He says to those who are joined to Him, you are the light of the world because you are joined to Me, the everlasting light.

We need the guidance of our Lord. We must watch with Christ. For when our eyes are turned to our destroyed worlds, we slip back into the sleep of darkness, despair, and the tempting voice of Satan, the deceiver. There is more than enough darkness to go around. The young suffer inexplicable suffering that crush their worlds, their dreams, and puts them on paths of despondency. The one-flesh union of marriage is cut with the sling blade of death. Families are torn apart as sins and grievances fester, as they go un-medicated without the forgiveness of sins, and buried hatchets are dug up, and the war rages on. We stick darkness into our veins, drink heavily to drive away the demons, self-medicate to the point of numbness, as the darkness consumes the light. Guide us walking O Lord, that all this darkness and pain, this sin and its tormenting thoughts wouldn’t consume our hope of the new world that has already come in Your Son, and shall come again in an even greater glory and light on the day of Your returning. 

Though are worlds have been destroyed O Lord, you place a new world in our ear and in our mouth. Let that simple Word of forgiveness penetrate past our ears, into our hearts, reviving body and soul. Let our open mouths devour the fleshly and liquid forgiveness that You give us sons of darkness that we would be your sons of light, resurrected anew in the creation of Your spoken and embodied gifts. Hold these treasures before our faces so that we may watch with Christ so that Your final day would not be unto us destruction, but deliverance, resurrection from all wrath, danger, and need. 

St. Paul says that you have put on Christ, that you are clothed with the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of the hope of salvation [1 Thess 5:8]. We are to encourage one another with these words. We are, as body of Christ, to encourage and build one another up. Encourage the dying. Encourage the sick. Encourage the broken. Encourage the grieving and the mourning. Build one another up so that for those whom things are going well would rejoice in Christ, and for those who are bowed down build them up with this same word of faith and love so that their heads would be lifted up for their eternal redemption is drawing near. You are children of the light, not of the darkness.      

But you ask. How is the Word concerning the Day of the Lord, encouragement to us? It is for the simple fact that the Jesus who will come again, the Jesus who will come to judge the living and the dead, the Jesus who will come with the glory of His Father, with cry of a command, with the trumpet of God, He is the exact same Jesus who has already come. That Jesus who has come through the flesh of the Virgin Mary, the Jesus who lived in the world, who forgave sins, healed the lame, fed the hungry, raised the dead, that Jesus we know well. He lived and died for you. He was raised by the glory of the Father on the third day, the eighth day, the day of resurrection and new creation. This same Jesus we await from heaven to return, the One who comes again to rescue us from the “day of wrath, the day of distress and anguish, the day of ruin and devastation, the day of darkness and gloom, the day of clouds and thick darkness” [Zeph 1:15], to rescue sinners from the fierce Judge of all sin. This Jesus has covered you in His own flesh. Thus God has not set you up for wrath, destined you for condemnation. No. Rather to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ [1 Thess 5:9]. Encourage one another with the free gift of this Jesus, this One who delivers His Word, His Body and His Blood so that they would depart in peace. Encourage One another with this One who comes again, who is friend of sinners, reconciler to those whose worlds have been destroyed, who have been ushered out of Eden’s paradise, who once were clothed in sin and shame, but now are eternally clothed in righteousness and love.

So this ancient prayer at the end of the day, “Guide us waking O Lord/and guard us sleeping/that awake we may watch with Christ/and asleep we may rest in peace.” This prayer is not simply for the rhythm of waking and sleeping, sleeping and waking. It’s also for the rhythm of living and dying, dying and living. St. Paul says earlier in his letter, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep [1 Thess 4:14].  The dead in Christ will be raised first, and if we live and are left until the coming of the day of the Lord, we will never die. This prayer, this song of dismissal in the peace of Christ is for us at all times, waking and sleeping, day to day, night to night. It’s also for us living in this world, while we are awake in this life, in this body as we watch with Christ, and when we are asleep whether in our beds or in our graves, that we may rest in peace. Peace, not simply because the final day has come, but because in Christ, His final day is eternal life and peace to us. It is for us a new world that will never end, never be subject to the sufferings of this present world. The psalmist tucks us into bed, into our graves, as we confess with him, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” [Ps 4:8].

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son [+] and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.