Romans 13:11-14
November 30, 2025
Besides this, you know what time it is,
how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to
us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is
near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of
light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and
drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and
jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for
the flesh, to gratify its desires.
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When
I woke up this past Monday morning, I already had a mental list of what I
needed to do before leaving the house and knew of one stop I needed to make on
the way to church and another that I wanted to make if there was time. I had a visit planned for the morning and a
meeting for late afternoon, and two possible chores for the evening dependent
on how long the afternoon meeting ran.
When
I woke up on Tuesday, I knew I had to write and record this sermon that day and
that there would be a trustees’ meeting after supper. By midmorning I was already a little bit
concerned about how Wednesday was going to go, because it involved not only
working around my own schedule but those of two other people and the traffic on
the busiest travel day of the year.
On
Wednesday I realized I had been overly optimistic on Tuesday. Let’s leave it at that.
Thursday
was Thanksgiving.
Friday
was a day to catch up before an annual get-together with friends who live in
Chestnut Hill.
I had
no idea while writing this sermon what Saturday was going to be like, but I had
my suspicions. I suspect that this most of
us are looking at the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas as one big blur of
looming deadlines and activities, checklists and assignments. I suspect that a lot of people are thinking, “What
can I fit into the week between Christmas and New Year’s?” and maybe even, “Can
I get to such-and-such after the holidays?”
When
we are under time constraints we manage them.
At some point, however, we make choices around things that cannot be
mutually accommodated. I’ll mention now
that we will have a guest preacher on October 25 because I will be in Richmond
for my goddaughter’s wedding. I’m
telling you now that I won’t be back that night for Trunk-or-Treat.
In
his letter to the Romans, Paul expressed his own awareness that God will one
day wind things up for this entire reality, this world, this universe, and that
a sense of urgency about using the time that we have well is a sign of wisdom
and maturity, as opposed to being among those who, faced with the recognition
of their mortality, go off the deep end, trying to fit in every kind of pleasurable
experience with a kind of frantic desperation: “Eat, drink, and be merry, for
tomorrow we shall die,” or, “Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful
corpse.”
The
dividing line is found between those who see this life as having direction and
purpose and those who see it as random and undirected. In the one view, life is what you put into
it. In the other, it’s all about what
you can get out of it. One of those approaches builds and establishes. The other approach depletes, then vanishes.
You
don’t have to go out of your way to make things hard, but always taking the
easy way almost guarantees that in the end, you will leave something undone that
could have been wonderful. Think of the
way that Michelangelo, as talented as he was, had to work years to develop his talent
to the point where he had the opportunity to lie on his back in weird positions
there in a cold, dark Sistine Chapel, until his neck was sore – working through
the night sometimes, with paint dripping onto his face as he worked and an
annoyed pope shouting up at him, “Are you done yet? How much longer?” Would his life have been somehow better if he
had stayed on the ground and played around with an Etch-a-Sketch?
Maybe
you could make that argument, but you’d have to admit that if he had done that,
a lot of other lives would have had less beauty and inspiration in them, to his
loss as much as to theirs. We each have
a purpose, whether we can identify it or not.
Each has a place in God’s work of creation. One day that work will be complete, and as to
that,
“the night is far gone, the day is near.
Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of
light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and
drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and
jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for
the flesh, to gratify its desires.” [Romans 13:12-14]
In
fifth grade, we had to memorize a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “A Psalm
of Life”. It sounded corny at the time, and
cornier by high school. It seems less so
now.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and
brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
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