Living in Hope

Advent Week 1 - Hope (Rom. 13:11-14)

Today, as we begin the season of Advent, we are reflecting on the hope we have in Christ. In doing so, we are going to pause our journey through Exodus, leaving the poor Israelites stranded in the wilderness. At least they have Manna. Instead, we’re jumping into chapter 13 of Paul’s letter to the Romans. He sent this letter to the Church in Rome in the mid-late 50’s AD as he was in Corinth and lays out a clear, thorough explanation of why and how we are saved in Christ. In this second half of the letter, Paul is describing how believers ought to live in the world in light of the Gospel - obeying government (so long as it doesn’t conflict with your faith) and loving one-another as fulfillment of the law (just like Jesus taught). Quick poll though - who took a nice nap after your Thanksgiving meal? (Be honest) And how many of you meant to? Y’all understand perfectly what we’ll be reading from Romans this morning - the importance of staying alert in anticipation of the return of Christ. My intention is to answer the question, “What does living with hope look like?” In other words, what difference does having hope actually make in our lives? Let’s jump in.

Paul begins “And do this (that is, live lives of love for one another), understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.” (Rom. 13:11-12a). This language of ‘present time, hours, night and day’ may all sound odd to us today, but this is the language of God’s judgment and deliverance throughout Scripture. We read of the “day of the Lord” in the prophets of the Old Testament and the authors of the New Testament, describing in various ways how God will do away with evil and bring deliverance to the righteous. As Jesus ministered and taught about the Kingdom of God, he reaffirmed that there would come a day where this judgment and deliverance would come once and for all. And that day will be Christ’s return. We can think of this present “age,” the one that stretches back to the resurrected Christ returning to the Father and forward to His return, as the “night” because, as we would all agree, sin has not yet been done away with and the griefs of life still take hold of us. However, ‘the day is almost here’. That is, the Day of the Lord, the Day of Christ’s return, the day every follower of Jesus is hoping for. Paul’s warning to the Romans, and to us today, is to remain alert, not allowing ourselves to become distracted or unaware, unprepared for His return. As Jesus’ parables remind us, we are to be watchful and ready for His coming. This active faith, that we practice today and tomorrow and on through the rest of our lives is what we are about as Nazarenes, Wesleyans, and Armenians. God desires to change our lives, our whole selves now, not just when we get to heaven. And to be clear, Paul’s warning isn’t intended to evoke fear, but awareness. He, just like Jesus, isn’t trying to scare us into Kingdom come, but to open our eyes (or reopen our eyes) to how urgent Christ’s coming is and how dire our need is for Spirit-led lives of repentance.

But how does this look in practice? Surely we aren’t supposed to stare out the window like a puppy waiting for his owner to return. We have stuff to do! Paul continues on - “So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Rom. 13:12b-14) Again, just like Jesus’ parables of the virgins awaiting the bridegroom or the owner of the house being ready for the thief (Matt. 24-25), we are instructed to stay ready, and live as if Jesus were coming back today (which is totally possible). And given His imminent return, do we want to be found living holy, daylight kinds of lives or compromised, sinful lives? Importantly, we can’t let the culture we live in define what these ‘daytime and nighttime’ activities are. While there are certainly some ways of living that Scripture and the world around us agree are right or wrong, the list seems to get shorter every day.

But how do we withstand the draw to the ‘night-life?” By putting on the ‘armor of light,’ an image found here and in 1 Thess. 5. Consider how armor is something ‘extra,’ something that we don’t wear by default, but would choose to put on so we are prepared. And this armor of light is that which comes through Christ alone. As we ‘clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,’ we are gearing up for battle, recognizing that there is a genuine war for our soul, for our lives. When Paul warns not to think about how to ’gratify the desires of the flesh,’ he’s not talking about the way we want food and water when we’re hungry or thirsty, or the way we desire genuine, healthy relationships, or the way that we enjoy going for a walk. This ‘flesh’ is the ‘sarx’ flesh that we’ve encountered before. The word Paul uses to describe the harmful desires we have as humans marred by sin. In other words, these are desires gone wrong - the desire for excess, for things that bring harm to ourselves or others - addiction, lust, envy, the ‘healthy’ desires gone awry. And as compelling as it may seem to just give in to the draw these have on our lives, we know from personal experience and from the wisdom of Scripture that they are not only sin, but will not ultimately satisfy. As the saying goes, "sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” And it’s for this reason that we desperately need the armor, the protection, that we find in Christ alone.

As a testament to how significant this call to wake up, set aside the deeds of darkness, and put on the armor of light is, consider this. The most impactful theologian of all time, one of the most influential figures in the history of the Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo, was converted at age 31 upon reading these very words. Having ‘lived it up’ in his youth and found himself lost, he was desperate for an encounter with God, for a new beginning. And as he records in his most famous work, his Confessions, he fell facedown in a garden, pleading through tears for some relief from this weight of guilt that he carried. Just then, he heard a child next door chanting “Tolle, lege! Tolle lege!” - “Take up and read! take up and read!” and, responding to the call, read the first passage he opened to in his copy of the New Testament, these words from Romans 13. He was so moved by the Spirit speaking through the words of Paul that he gave his life to Christ right then and there and was baptized with his friends the following year. He went on to shape our understanding of God and salvation to this very day. What an impact.

Yet, we may think to ourselves, “that’s great for Augustine. I’m glad he got his life together. But my life is going alright. I’m a ‘Christian’ already. I go to Church, I try to live right. I even read my Bible sometimes.” We may tell ourselves we’re doing fine and are ready for Christ’s return. Excited for it, even. However, this can be the most dangerous place to be. Maybe you’ve been a long road trip and, fatigued, found your eyes getting heavy. You’re convinced you are fine to keep driving but maybe that’s not the best idea. This is the dangerous kind of sleep - that which we don’t realize we’re headed toward, thinking all is alright. Until…

Ernest Hemingway’s first novel The Sun also Rises relays a conversation between two characters at a bar: A man is asked how he went bankrupt. His reply is “gradually, then suddenly.” I stumbled across this quote in a book I’m reading about having hard conversations (more on that another time), but I think it so powerfully illustrates a serious threat to our faith too. It’s easy to dismiss our gradual drifting away in little moments - It’s just one day without time in Scripture, no big deal. I know I should’ve spent that money less selfishly, but I really wanted ______. I know I probably should’ve been more patient with ______ but I just don’t have it in me today. We drift, gradually, into a numbness to God’s guidance, the work of the Spirit, telling ourselves “it’s just this once.” Then, suddenly, we realize that we haven’t even thought about our faith for weeks or that the ‘little” issues we’ve been letting hang around have grown out of control. This is almost always the way we stray from a wholehearted pursuit of Christ - “gradually, then suddenly.”

So, living in hope. On this first Sunday of Advent, of celebrating the hope that’s found in Christ’s coming, we have an opportunity to ask ourselves the question - am I living in hope? Not, ‘do we claim we have hope.’ Not, ‘do we pretend we have hope.’ But are our lives genuinely, completely shaped by the hope we have in both Christ’s coming and Christ’s return…right now? If we have this hope that can be found in Christ alone, if we are waiting in eager expectation of His return, we will live differently. The hope we’re talking about certainly is about the life to come, but that’s far from the only hope that we have in Christ; than God intended for us to have in Christ. Rather than living in a daze, swept about by the attractions of the world around, living however we can get along most easily, chasing after whatever draws our attention, we will be alert, ready for Christ’s return, dressed in His righteousness alone. Our lives will be changed by Christ, today.

Christ is our hope. He’s our hope today, and he’ll be our hope long after our attempts to replace Him have fallen flat. May we clothe ourselves in Him this season.