Reflection: Our Hour Has Come (December 1, 2013)

The 1st Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 24:36-44

After France fell to Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill delivered one of his most famous speeches to prepare his nation for the Battle of Britain. He called on his countrymen to rise to the challenge of turning back the Nazis and then to liberate Europe. He put before them the very real threats that they would face as well as the potential of achieving what he said history would recognized as Britain’s “finest hour.”

As Jesus prepared to go to the Cross, He explained to His disciples the very real threats that they would face from His enemies. He also shared with them what would come about when Satan unleashed all of his power and might in a final
assault on the Church. Jesus told them that “No one knows that day and hour, not even the Son, but only the Father only“ so that instead of focusing on a date they would understand that Jesus was giving them (and us) a calling. His statement, “Stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming,” is His way of encouraging us to be ready to meet the challenges of what is meant to be our finest hour.

We struggle with this call because we look at and experience time in a very different way than God does. The psalmist explains that “a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Ps. 90:4). We, on the other hand, live our lives with precise measurements of time. So when God tells us that “the hour has come” we think in terms of a clock rather than in terms of our circumstances. Yet if we look around and take Jesus’ teachings to heart, we quickly recognize that the time to wake from our spiritual slumber and rise to meet our oppressive enemy has certainly arrived. We do know the time, that is, the times in which we live. And these times are filled with all of the indications that the day of the Lord is fast approaching.

That great and terrible day of the Lord has been fast approaching for nearly two thousand years. If we think about that with our idea of time we will have no sense of urgency. But when we realize that it is like two days to God we start to understand that time is very short indeed. “The hour has come for you to wake from sleep” is an urgent appeal to rise to the challenges of our time, “cast off the works of darkness,” “put on the armor of light,” “make no provision for the flesh,” and, above all, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Time is running out and there is much work for us to do while it can be done. The stage is set. The time has come for us to shine as we “walk in the light of the Lord.” In Him, through Him, and by Him this will be our finest hour.

Click here to listen to the sermon "Our Hour Has Come" (or right-click to download the MP3 file).