"You Better Watch Out"

Dear Friends in Christ, 

   Whenever we get to the season of Advent and we start preparing ourselves for our annual celebration of Christmas, we inevitably begin to hear stories of how Christmas has fallen out of favor with so many in our culture, especially the politically correct crowd.  Because of that, some stores now forbid their employees to wish their customers a Merry Christmas for fear of offending someone.  The American Civil Liberties Union swoops in like a hawk on an unsuspecting mouse in communities that would dare to put out a nativity scene in the town square, claiming that this a flagrant violation of the supposed doctrine of separation of church and state, even though that doctrine is found nowhere in our Constitution.  Public schools may hold winter festivals that have all the secular trappings of Christmas, like trees, decorations, presents, and so on, but don’t you dare refer to it as a Christmas program because that word “Christmas” has the name Christ in it and heaven forbid that anyone in a public school setting should think of him at this time of the year!  You may have heard about the busses in Washington, D.C. that will be displaying the following ad during this Christmas season: “Why believe in a god?  Just be good for goodness’ sake.”  Those ads were purchased by the American Humanist Association for a mere $40,000.  Indeed, it’s gotten so bad that according to an article that appeared in USA Today last year about this time, authorities in Bal Harbor, FL outfitted the Baby Jesus in their outdoor Nativity scene with a GPS locator as a protection against thieves.  The previous Baby Jesus was stolen even though it was bolted down.  The lady who oversees that display was quoted as saying: “I don’t anticipate this will ever happen again, but we may need to rely on technology to save our Savior.”  Then she added that the Mary and Joseph statues would also be outfitted with GPS.

   Well, I thought that to add some interest to our Sunday morning Advent services this year, I would base my messages upon some of the words found in popular Christmas songs.  Please note that not all these songs will be Christian in nature, but I will pull a Christian message out of them.  Now there are some Christmas songs that I decided to eliminate right from the get-go.  For example, I will not be using “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” although you may be interested in knowing that that is now the most requested Christmas song ever and it has sold more than 10 million copies.

   But this morning I am going to make use of the familiar first line that appears in the popular song “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”  This Christmas song sounds very much like an effort on the part of parents to get their children to behave throughout the year, especially when it says: “Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town.  He’s making his list, checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”  I can still remember learning that song in kindergarten and thinking quite frequently about the ever-present nature of Santa Claus that it conveys, which I guess is why I was always such a good boy when I was young and never gave my parents any problems! 

   But the way I thought of Santa Claus back then is the way that many people think of God today.  And because of that, our text for this morning may strike fear into their hearts for it tells of the unexpected and unknown nature of Christ’s return and how they need to be ready for that event at all times.  “Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come,” Jesus says.  Which is just another way of saying, “You better watch out.”  So let’s spend some time this morning exploring these words of Jesus and what they have to say about that climactic event of history that will bring an end to the world as we know it and usher in what the Bible calls the new heavens and the new earth and the eternal reign of Christ the King.

   First of all, Jesus was absolutely insistent that no one knows when his 2^nd coming will occur.  In v. 32 of our text he says: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  Did you catch that, my friends?  Not even Jesus according to his human nature knew the time or the day of his return.  You know what that means?  That means that anytime you hear someone proclaiming a specific date for Christ’s return, you can be absolutely certain that that will be one day it won’t happen.

   Now to be sure, there have been those throughout history who have ignored Jesus’ words in our text and who have felt themselves capable of predicting the precise date of his return.  For example, back in 1833 a preacher by the name of William Miller began to proclaim that the end of the world was at hand.  He set the date on Oct. 10, 1943.  Thousands heard this warning and over the next 10 years perhaps 100,000 people became followers of William Miller.  And when 1843 rolled around, those followers were so convinced that the end would come that year that they did not bother to plant crops.  For why sow wheat if the end was going to come before they could harvest it?  Finally, Oct. 10 came and these followers donned their white ascension robes and gazed longingly toward the heavens, waiting for Jesus to come.  But guess what?  He didn’t show up.  Their leader, William Miller, admitted defeat, did some recalculating, and came back with another prediction.  He said he had been a year off in his calculations and that Jesus was coming back the next year, but again he was wrong.  And so has every other person who has attempted to predict a precise date for Christ’s return. 

   No one knows the day nor the hour, just like no one knows neither the day nor the hour when their life on this earth is going to come to an end.  And we’ve certainly seen evidence of that lately, especially with Rachelle Hollinshead’s 44-year-old brother-in-law who wasn’t feeling well one evening at his home a few weeks ago and went upstairs to take a nap, only to die suddenly in his sleep.  James, the half brother of our Lord Jesus, captures so well the uncertainty and fragility of life with these words in the 4^th chapter of his New Testament epistle.  He says: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

   So we need to be on guard, as our text says.  We need to be alert.  We need to be prepared at all times, lest that day come upon us unexpectedly and catch us unprepared.  Then a 2^nd thing that the Bible teaches us about the 2^nd coming of Christ is that it will be a day unlike any other our world has ever seen.  Some years ago I read a book by my favorite author Max Lucado entitled When Christ Comes Again.  He begins that book with a fascinating description of what that day may be like.  Listen carefully…

   I love that last sentence: “All that mattered, matters no more, for Christ has come.”  My friends, all the things that we think are so important right now and that we place such high priority upon – our material possessions, the home we live in, the clothes we wear, the worldly goals of success and popularity we pursue, the trophies we win – none of those will matter on that day.  That’s why I’ve been having a very difficult time lately when I look at the attendance figures for our Sunday School.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out why parents in our congregation will have their children involved in every extra-curricular activity imaginable – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but when it comes to having their children in Sunday School or even church for that matter where they are going to learn things that are going to matter for eternity, things that are going to matter on that day when Christ comes again or calls them home, whichever comes first, they allow the things of this world to take precedence over those things that are so much more important.

   And that takes us to the final point that I want to make this morning.  And that is that even though we don’t know the future, we do know that the future is in God’s hands and he can be trusted.  At times the future looks pretty bleak, doesn’t it?  A few months ago the World Future Society released their forecasts for the next 25 years and admittedly, some of those forecasts were positive and upbeat.  For example, they said that by the year 2025 the world would have a billion millionaires.  That’s a lot of wealthy people, isn’t it?  I hope you’re one of them and that if you are it will be reflected in your Sunday morning offerings!  They have also predicted that a new process will be developed to remove salt from seawater and make it drinkable at a much lower cost than ever thought possible.  They forecast dramatic improvements in genetic engineering, robotics, and other areas of technology. 

   But they also report that the threat of another cold war with China or Russia or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign policy concern of the United States.  They’re also forecasting major changes in climate with widespread flooding and water replacing oil as the most precious commodity on earth.

   Now, how much of that will actually occur, no one really knows.  But here’s what we do know as Christians.  The same God who invaded our world 2000 years ago as a tiny infant is the same God who holds the future in his hands.  The same God who allowed himself to be nailed to a cross as the all-sufficient sacrifice and payment for sin is the same God who knows what lies ahead of us.  The same God who defeated death on Easter morning and took away Satan’s power to do us harm is the same God who has promised that he will walk beside us as we enter the unknown and uncertain days that are before us.  That’s why I say that not only is the future in his hands, but he can be trusted with that future. 

Amen.