New Year’s Eve

December 31, 2014

Luke 12:35-40

Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them." Luke 12:37

In Nomine Jesu

It’s the eve of the New Year. And you wait, but not in a slothful “whatever will be will be” fatalistic waiting. You wait dressed and ready for battle against the evil one, lamps burning with the oil of faith, in this passing age. You are sojourners not residents. You are to build tents not homes. You are to sit in the Master’s Holy Temple like St. Simeon, eyes dimmed by the darkness of the world, body broken by the years of sin, yet seeing the light of your salvation dawning upon you in the child divinely determined to rescue you from the thief who is the prince of this eve, this day, this night, this world. You are to live with your heart firmly fastened to Jesus, the only One who gives you certain joy, who is your treasure and everlasting pleasure. Your life is not of the kingdoms of this world that stagger and stumble, fall and crumble, nor is it summed up in the dates that are etched in your tombstone. Your life is begotten from the kingdom above, born anew in baptismal love. Your life is not simply lived between the turns of a calendar page, in the here and now of this passing age. Your life is hidden beneath time, no number or statistic can define you, for you are an eternal creature declared anew in the image of the eternal and crucified Christ.  

New Year’s Eve is not to be bombarded with gushy and champagne intoxicated slurred singing of Auld Lang Syne, however enjoyable that may be to you. You don’t simply raise your glass and toast for the sake of old times, whether that is to the pride or sorrow of yesteryear. After all, you know you can’t relive the past with its happiness. You can’t live within a fond memory no matter how hard you try, for the clock keeps ticking and life must go on. You are to live and keep vigil in the vocations He has given you, to love, to serve, to sacrifice, to give within time and take no concern of the past or the future, but to live as you are called. The future you cannot trace and the past with all its skeletons is not easily buried, even with plenty of alcohol and a rocking New Year’s Eve party. You don’t number your days and years for its glory or its re-incrimination. You number them to be mindful of the faithfulness of the Lord, how He has brought you through this cursed earth and humanity’s atrocities. You number your days mindful of how He has born your sins, your broken body, your life and your neighbor’s life in all its complexity. You number your days in the Lord for in the Lord your days are unnumbered.  

The years will come to an end. But the Master’s house has an eternal zip code. The Master will do something that no master has ever done: He will serve. He will give. He will sacrifice. He will dress Himself in death to dress you in life. You, the servants will not serve. You will be served. The Master will not be waited upon, He will wait upon you. He will recline you at Table. He will not just wash your feet but your whole body anew. He will feed Himself to you, incorruptible flesh for corruptible flesh, immortal food for mortals, eternity ushering Himself into your sin and death, so that sin is forgiven, death is conquered, and time melts into the heart of Him who is eternal love. How greatly you have fallen through the years yet even greater is His love that has loved you and forgiven you all these years. 

The thief is coming and has come. His joy is to rob you of your Master’s service. His joy is to have you live only of self, and to think that your time is your own, that you can control the clock and hide from the impending Day of the Lord. The thief is the Devil and the Devil is a lying, murdering, thief. He tries to take from you everything that the Lord gives you: the health of body and soul, the joy of His kingdom, the peace that passes throughout all generations, no old year to toast, just the delight of the endless New Year. The devil doesn’t want you to have the things that you need. He wants you to have what you want, and to forget about what you need.

When the Lord said to stay awake, and be dressed and ready, He really meant it. He didn’t say, set an alarm clock. And the Lord knows that you would hit the snooze button anyway. He said stay awake. Yet the nighttime is not merely for sleeping. You know that well enough. The pillow is soft but the heart and the mind just won’t rest. The endless nights, pacing the floor, from the T.V. to the refrigerator and back again, to rest your eyes on your sleeping children only to worry about their future, to live in the dark as the thief little by little steals the hope and the light away. When in the middle of the night and you sleeplessly lie, hear the Word of the Lord, seek His promise in scripture and hymn, for His Word made flesh scatters the darkness and lightens your every labor. Your expectation here is not that magically you will be lifted from all suffering and pain, but that even as you pray, “Even So Lord Jesus, quickly come,” He has come to heal your wounds and cover them in His mercy. The grace of the New Year, even the old year, is that even before you seek His mercy, He is there dressed and ready to serve you. The Master becomes the servant and the servant masterfully is served by the Master. He comes to serve you in the midst of every thieving thought of darkness and dawning upon you His light and His grace.

The Wisdom of Solomon, though an apocryphal book, speaks of Christ being born at midnight: “When the night was half spent Your Almighty Word, O Lord, descended from the royal throne.” In the eve of night the angels announced to the shepherds that heaven was coming to earth, the Son of God born for the sons of men. In the eve of the night the wise men followed the star from Jerusalem to the City of David, their wisdom showing forth as they worshiped God in the flesh. In the eve of the night the holy Child grew, teaching and revealing the will and heart of His eternal Father. In the eve of night, Jesus broke bread, took the cup, and fed His own with His body and blood. In eve of the night Jesus prayed in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the eve of the night, Jesus betrayed by His own, handed over to sin and death, devil and cross, to crucify the darkness of all people’s hearts and shine in them His Holy Spirit. The eve of the night is given to Jesus, just as Jesus through the dark-night made all things Son-light.

You are dressed and ready for the New Year, because He who has fed you at His Table girds you with faith and hope that cannot be extinguished even by the thief of the night, by the sorrows of past years and by the uncertainties of future years. Your years are the Lord’s and the Lord is your endless year. Even as we bid goodbye to 2014, the year of our congregation’s 60^th birthday, we remain awake and ready for 2015 with the Lord’s gifts and Spirit who redeems all our years and gives us this New Year.

As you wait, your earthly tent is sown in sorrow and death even as your heavenly body is raised by immortal, God-loving breath. You are aliens to this world. But you are citizens of the new world that is coming and has come in the flesh of Jesus. You sit at His Table, with Simeon and all the saints who have gone before you, feasting together and joining your voices in endless praise to Him who saved you and gave you a new year that knows no dates. The darkness no longer dims your eyes, for you see your salvation prepared and delivered to you before your eyes. His body broken, for your body broken. His blood shed, for your shed blood. The thief will not catch you unaware for at this Table and in this place of gifted-grace, his thieving ways have come to an end. The thief is defeated, for all your new years belong to Him who loved you, died for you, and rose for you that the New Year would never turn old. And as you live as sojourners on this earth, begotten of new birth by the only begotten Son, you are now ready for your Master to come and feed you, to give you the keys of the kingdom and so raise you to heavenly life.

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