New Years Eve 2003
New Year’s Eve Sermon
Luke 12:35–38
“He Shall Serve Them!”
after W.C.Weedon
Introduction: Behind all the noise, the parties, and the joyful celebrations that mark the coming of a new year, there is—for those who have ears to hear it—a note of melancholy, of wistfulness, yes, even of sorrow. The year has quickly passed by. And there are those with whom we walked this past year, who walk with us no more. The stream of time has carried them away, beyond the bend. And we, all of us gathered here tonight, know how swiftly the stream flows. And we are in the stream, as it too, carries us along. But to where? To what place does it take us? To what far shore? The older we grow, the more seriously we ponder that. For it is no accident, that we all have the same sensation, that the older we grow, the faster the stream seems to carry us along.
What Do We Make of Time?
New Year’s Eve confronts us rather directly with the problem of time. What are we to make of time? To go the way of the world would be to end up in despair, a despair which often hides under the appearance of celebrations and parties. This is the only option for those who are convinced that the stream of time doesn’t go anywhere, that it carries you along until you go under—by old age, sickness or by tragic accident. For surely we all die. It is pointless to try to imagine death away or to cover it up and make it somehow seem tame and domestic, and natural. It is not natural. We feel it in our bones. And to look at death as being the only goal to which the stream brings us is to cause us to despair. For what then was the point or purpose of anything in life at all? Life is then meaningless. Listen carefully and you will hear under much of the gaiety and festivity tonight the wild and reckless cry of those who think that this is it, that this life is all there is, and so they celebrate in defiance, having no other answer to give. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”
But tonight’s reading from St. Luke’s Gospel offers the joy of another way. Oh, it doesn’t get you out of the stream. The stream flows on as God has decreed, and it’s no use fighting it. We are born; we grow old; we die. But what we believe comes after our dying—that is what shapes how we live in the meantime, right now. Jesus said, “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night” (Lk 12:35–38).
Guests of Honor at the Royal Feast
Jesus tells us what is at the rivers end, where the stream of time carries us no more. It is a gift—a gift beyond our imagining! A feast, a royal feast! And we who have spent our lives watching, looking for, looking forward to the great return and the feast are the guests of honor, served by none other than the Lord Jesus himself.
Then, we may not live our lives like those in the world who do not know the Lord Jesus and who do not know the gift that he promises at the end, at the streams end. Many people will come into this New Year with resolutions of how they will make the misery in their lives go away by the deeds of their will, trying to find meaning in the meaninglessness of self improvement, in the trivialities of life. But we may not. If we dare make any resolutions this year, first of all we must resolve to be more watchful and more earnest in our waiting; that we will dwell more on the joys that Jesus Christ has secured for us by his own suffering and death on the cross and guaranteed to us by his rising from the dead.
Many people do not know where the stream takes them. For some people, the place it brings them is so horrible that it is unthinkable. These are those people who have no time for the gift of life that the Lord Jesus died on the cross to win for them, and lives to give to them. They are too preoccupied with the world around them, maybe even more so as they see it streaming away, and knowing that they are unable to hold on to it. “This world is passing away.”
We live as people who know what it is like to be drowning in the stream, to be carried along and whisked under its torrents, dragged down by our own sin. We know what it is like to be rescued, to be saved from drowning, and to be given a fresh breath of eternal life giving air, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now we live to rescue and save those people around us that have no hope as the stream drags them down. The Lord uses us to save the people around us by sharing the message of the gospel with them, that they might hear, believe and be saved.
Even now, as the stream carries us all along, we live as those who know where we are going. Jesus has told us so. “In my Father’s house are many mansions. . . . I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2 KJV). Yes, and in that house stands the King’s table. We are bound for that banqueting hall, and there is a place for us at that table. We who have believed in him have a place reserved especially for us from before the foundations of this world were laid.
And we live as those who long to be there. This world and all that is in it can never satisfy the longing heart, the hungry soul. The longer a Christian lives in this world of sorrow and heartache, the more he is prone to cry out with St. Paul, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Phil 1:23). Even more so does that cry express the longing of the Christian when he grows older and so many friends and family and neighbors have been carried downstream and have reached the safety of the promised land of peace, knowing the salvation of their souls. We know that they are home; we are on the way.
We live as those who watch for the certain coming of the Lord. For though death may come at any moment and carry us to eternal life, we know the greatest joy of all will be when the Lord Jesus himself returns and the stream at last ends for us—right before the throne of the Father and the Lamb. And so there is always the upward glance. In all we say and do, we dare never forget that the stream of time is not infinite. It runs out, and it runs out at the feet of the crucified and risen Lord.
Finally, we live as those who keep our lamps lit—our lamps of faith, fueled by the Spirit. We stay close to our Master, hearing Him speak to us through His Word, eating the food he has provided—his body and his blood. We eat and drink what he gave so that we might belong to him forever, so that death would never have the power to separate us from his love. While we wait, this blessed food gives us the strength to endure the stream of life as it carries us along. And in this meal is a foretaste of that moment described by our Lord, where we will join together in the greatest party and celebration of all, the wedding feast of the Lamb. For here the Lord himself serves us.
“Be ready,” says our Savior and Lord. We, his people, taking leave of one year and walking into the next, cry out to him: “O Lord, you alone can make us ready. Fix our eyes on you in this New Year, on the hope that you have laid before us in heaven, on the blessings you continue to serve us in your church. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
