I. Preparing for Death
There is a show on The Learning Channel right now called “the Monastery”. In this show five people at different places in their faith, or lack of faith, agree to spend 40 days at a Benedictine monastery and you watch as the monastic life changes them. It is an interesting show, to say the least. In last week’s episode the group went out to a cabin about a mile from the monastery proper where one of the monks has lived as a hermit for the last thirty years. He spends his life praying and making rugs. The visitors asked him about what it is that he sees himself doing there. He responded by telling them that he is preparing for his death. One of the guys commented on how sad and depressing that was. Basically, he had spent the last thirty years of his life preparing to die. The hermit got a beautiful smile on his face and a distant look. He said, “You say that as if it were a bad thing. It will be a great adventure.”
This hermit, in spending thirty years in constant prayer, realized that he has something to look forward to. He is waiting in expectation for what comes next for him.
Today’s scripture tells us that the earth, the world around us, is waiting in expectation for Christ to return! The world around us longs for Jesus to come back. And I look at us as Christians, as Christ’s followers, and I realize that many of us do not share that same expectation and excitement.
The fact is that we, I, have too much going on in this world. We’re too attached to the world around us, too unwilling to let them go. I have again and again found myself saying, “Jesus, I’m ready for you to return; but not until…”
II. The Last Days
Did you know that the authors in the New Testament referred to the time that they were living as “the last days” or “the end times”? Now many Biblical scholars have said that the New Testament authors truly believed that Jesus would be returning within their own lifetime. These scholars say that since it is clear that Jesus did not return and it has been two thousand years now and Christ has not yet returned, that they were wrong to think that they were actually living in the end times. What is actually funny is that many of these same scholars will go on to say that though the writers of the New Testament were wrong in thinking that they lived in the end times, when we look at the world around us we realize that we must be living in the end times ourselves. Every generation of Christian has looked at the world around them and believed that they truly were in the last days, though those who had come before them were not.
But, you see, I believe, as many of you do, that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore when Paul or the writer of Hebrews refers to living in the last days, then they were actually living in the end times. But that means, then, that people have been living in the end times for almost 2000 years. It also means that we don’t know how much longer we will live in the end times. This means that we need to redefine our understanding of what the end times are. They cannot be a few days or years leading up to Christ’s return. They need to be something more. And that something more seems to me to be the fact that whenever the Bible talks about living in the end times it talks about having a great expectation for what is to come.
We are people of the end times. This doesn’t mean that Jesus will return tomorrow. He might, but we just don’t know. What it does mean is that we should be longing with our whole heart for him to return tomorrow.
III. Longing
When we look at the world around us; when we see famine and war and strife; when we see people turning away from God and his ways; what is our response to this world? Do we get caught up in the strife ourselves? Do we just realize that this is the way of the world and try to make do? Or do we join with creation in waiting in eager expectation for Christ to return?
Today’s scripture is about the world longing for Christ’s return. It tells us that the earth groans, that it is in the pains of childbirth as it waits for Christ. In the passage from Revelation that we read this morning we see that something great is coming. There is going to be a new heaven and a new earth and all that is broken and lost will be made new. The earth around us, like us, will have to die so that it can be reborn into a new earth that will feel no war again, no famine again, no pain or suffering again.
Do we truly feel the excitement of that longing for what is to come? Or do we allow ourselves to get so caught up in the world around us that we don’t pay much attention to the world to come?
I’ve read a few books about reaching out to today’s young. One thing that is mentioned in numerous books is that the “if you should die tomorrow” question doesn’t really work too much anymore. You see, people today aren’t very interested in what is going to happen when they get to the throne of judgment. They are much more interested in what God can do for them today, in the world. This actually makes sense. We as a world aren’t teaching our young to think about the life to come, and therefore they are much more interested in the world as it is today. And so, when we reach out to non-believers, we are encouraged to talk about how God can impact your life here on earth as well as focusing on what he will do for you after you die. But, the danger is that we could go too far in one direction. We could become so temporally focused, we could become so focused on this world today that we forget to wait in eager expectation for Christ to come again.
But let us look again at today’s scripture… “The earth waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the earth was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
As Romans usually is, this is dense and packed and confusing. But, as Romans usually does, it is saying something powerful. Because of sin, the world was subject to frustration. Because of sin, the world is in bondage to decay. But the world can look forward to liberation from this. The world can look forward to the glorious freedom of the children of God.
The world, the earth, and we who are in it, are living in the end times, the last days. What this means is that we are living in a place of already but not yet there. We are already the children of God. We are already saved, adopted into the family of Christ. We are already God’s followers, the body of Christ. But we are not yet complete, we look forward with hope to the completion of this in our lives.
We are called to look with eager expectation for Christ’s return. But we are also called to reveal ourselves as God’s children before this world and bring about God’s kingdom on this world. It will truly never happen until Christ returns, but as Christ’s body we are called to work towards it happening.
This means that as we look at the trouble in the world around us we can feel sorrow at what we see. It means that we can long with our whole heart for Christ to come again and bring an end to war, famine, hunger, sickness, evil. But it also means that we are called, as Christ’s body to work in this world today to lessen each of these things. We are called to be peacemakers. We are called as Christ’s body to bring an end to war. We are called to feed the hungry and the stranger. We are called to bring an end to hunger and famine. We are called to care for widows and the sick and those in prison.
We live in the end times. This means that we are already and not yet there. We long for Jesus to bring his peace to this world as we work in this world to bring about Christ’s peace. We know that we cannot truly put an end to the problems of this world, but we also know that God can and will work through us to bring healing to this world. The earth waits for the sons of God to be revealed. It is waiting for the end, where Christ returns and brings an end to the suffering it has faced. But it also waits for us, God’s children, to bring God’s love and peace to it.
So let us live with the same eager expectation that the earth has. And let us work in this world to be Christ’s body and bring Christ to those who need him. Amen.
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