Twelfth Day of Christmastide ’14

We finish our Christmastide journey through Romans 12 and 13 by coming full circle back to Advent.

Jesus came at Christmas … and He’s coming again soon.

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:11-14)

This surprised me: Most people believe Jesus will return! Well, they did in 2006, anyway, which isn’t that long ago. In a Pew Research survey taken that year of thousands of American adults, 79% said they believe in the literal second coming of Jesus.

This surprises me, because people don’t live like it. They hardly talk about it. It certainly doesn’t seem like people are preparing for it. That’s why I’m just not sure we’re ready for it.

Almost everybody missed the first Christmas. Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, some shepherds, Simeon, Anna, and some Iraqi astrologers…that’s who got it. The prophecies were out there. The timing of His coming was spot on (see the book of Daniel). Still, it was an anonymous event.

Then, Jesus told His disciples often that He would come a second time in glory to judge the world. In many of those stories, he describes people who simply were not going to be ready, and who would miss it.

Now, here in Romans, Paul says that there is a position to be taken in light of the upcoming return of Jesus. It’s a moral agenda – the mortifying of sinful desires. Frankly, it’s the opposite of our usual Christmastide agendas, which are fixated on indulging our desires. My wife Karen works at a daycare, and has been asking the kids if they had a good Christmas. The response is almost always a listing of gifts received. A “good” Christmas is a profitable one, not a righteous one. As Benjamin Franklin quipped, “How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.”

I hope this has been a “good” Christmastide for you all … in the goodest sense of the word “good”! I pray that your meditation on the incredible gift of the Holy Christ has moved you to want to give your life as a living sacrifice to Him in return. To put on Christ. In thanks for His first coming, we prepare ourselves for the second.

The (second) day is at hand! We believe it. Let’s be ready for it!

Merry Christmas … and a blessed Epiphany season beginning tomorrow.