Texts:  Eccl 3:1-17; 2 Pet 3:3-13; Matt 16:1-4                                                              W New Year’s Eve

What Time Is It?

            Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:  I wonder if you’ve ever found yourself in a situation in which you were the only one in a group who happened to be wearing a watch? If so, what probably happened was that as soon as somebody noticed, you became the official timekeeper and everybody kept asking you, “What time is it?”  Maybe something similar happened when you were with a group of young children, who usually manage to ask the question a lot – even when they’re too young to understand what you mean when you say, “It’s eleven fifty-seven” – because what they really want to know is, “is it time for lunch?” or “is it time for a favorite television program?”

            Tonight we observe the passing of another year. Even though tomorrow will be pretty much the same as today, it makes a lot a difference to us that tomorrow is another year.  We are beings who keep track of the passage of time – we want to know what time it is. God designed us that way.  And he designed the physical world we live in to help us keep time:  he gave us a cycle of day and night to keep track of hours; a lunar cycle to keep track of months, and a seasonal cycle to keep track of years.  God wants us to keep time.  And oddly enough, each of the cycles, or time keeping devices that he gave us has something to do with the amount of sunlight we get directly or indirectly reflected from the moon.  Each cycle begins in relative darkness, peaks in a zenith of brilliance, and then declines back to darkness again.  There seems to be a message there.  Every day, month, and year we are reminded that everything, including us, has a beginning, a heyday, and an end.  Perhaps we see it most clearly in the annual cycle where things begin with all the appearances of cold lifelessness, suddenly spring to life, grow and come to fruition, and then return to cold death again.  Everything is beautiful in its time ... but eventually its time runs out. It never lasts.  Built into the very fabric of the creation we live in is the message:  time is running out.

            And knowing that everything is passing away in time, we keep asking the question, “What time is it?”  But what we really want to know is, “How much time do we have left ... before ... well, before what?”  What is it that’s at the end that we want to know how much more time we’ve got before it gets here?  Is it just the end itself?  Or do we all have some deep-seated consciousness that there’s something after the end?  The Bible says we do.  Solomon writes, “[God] has set eternity in the hearts of men”.  Just as sure as the sun comes up again, the moon waxes back to fullness, and the winter ends, we know for certain that there is something that comes after.  And more than that, we know that whatever it is will be forever.  God has given us a longing for something that lasts and then frustrates by putting us in an environment where nothing lasts – precisely so we will look for the one thing that does.

            Of course some people deny it.  They claim they have to have proof, some sort of irrefutable sign that there is something beyond the here and now; but I don’t believe they are being completely honest.  Somewhere in their hearts, however hard they may try to suppress it, is the longing for something that endures and the certainty that it’s out there. And beyond that, there is a deep-seated awareness that somehow what takes place in the here and now is going to make a difference in the hereafter.  We have a built in sense of justice that ensures us the things that we say and do will one day be called into account.  Without these foundational concepts built into human hearts, all human life would be completely meaningless, and civilization simply could not exist.

            So, the world today, which is largely unchristian, is overcast by this deep feeling of anxiety:  the knowledge that time is running out, the longing for something that lasts, the certainty that there is something that does, and the helplessness of grasping after one empty hope after another in their search for it. And so the constant, urgent, nagging question:  “What time is it?”

            And here we are in the church of Christ with what is quite literally the only watch in the whole group.  We know what time it is.  And unfortunately, we don’t always do a very good job of sharing the information on the watch God has given us.  Self-proclaimed biblical prophesy experts like Hal Lindsey, the authors of the popular Left Behind books, and a whole noisome swarm of others make a lot of money and confuse people by calculating numbers and lining up portions of the book of Revelation with current events (which is no big trick – you have only to let your imagination run wild).  Sadly, their answer to the question “What time is it?” is always the same: “The end is coming pretty soon, but not just yet; there are a number of important prophecies that need to be fulfilled first.  We’ll keep you informed.  You keep sending your donations”.  Speaking falsely for the church, they perpetuate the lie that there’s still plenty of time.

            So, mockers from outside the church laugh at us for clinging to our hope for the future, even while they desperately search for something to satisfy their own God given need for something that lasts; and false prophets within the church keep reading the time wrong, and they broadcast their inaccurate observations to the world which is only too eager to hear, “we’ve still got some time”.  And all the while, we sit holding the watch.  Could it be that we haven’t looked at it lately?  Or maybe, we’ve forgotten how to tell time?  Could it be that we, like the Pharisees, cannot read the signs of the times? Let me ask you, “Do you know what time it is?”

            To answer the question, let’s look at the watch God gave us:  St. Peter writes: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

The watch God gave us has only two time readings on it:  “Today”, the Day of Grace; and “Tomorrow”, the Day of the Lord.  The Day of Grace is now.  It lasts while God waits patiently for sinners to come to repentance.  We are given no information about when it will end – only the certainty that it will, and that it will do so suddenly and without specific warning – just like it did for all those people killed in last Sunday’s tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  In the same way, we know that the Day of Grace could end for all of us now, in the twinkling of an eye, or just as suddenly a thousand years from now – or it could end for any one of us individually:  because at death we come to an end of the Day of Grace.  The fact is that we are potentially never more than a single breath away from the Day of the Lord. 

            But how do we know that we are still within the Day of Grace?  We know it by reading the signs of the times.  What sign? The same one that Jesus gave the Pharisees:  the sign of Jonah.  You recall that Jonah was sent to preach repentance to the wicked Ninevites – and on the way he spent three days in the belly of a fish.  But after his unhappy side trip, he preached God’s warning to the Ninevites, who repented and were spared from destruction.  Jesus said that as Jonah had spent three days in the belly of a fish, so he would spend three days in the belly of the earth, dead and buried.  It was by his death that he earned grace for all of us, and by his resurrection he announced that repentance and forgiveness could be proclaimed in his name, so that we would be spared from destruction.  By this “sign” he announced the beginning of the Day of Grace.  And by this same “sign” of Jesus’ death we know that we are in the Day of Grace, as Paul writes:  For as often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you show the Lord’s death, until he comes again. Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper we hold before the world the surest sign that God’s grace is still being extended to penitent sinners:  the body of our Lord broken, and the blood of our Lord shed for the forgiveness of sin.

            Now, the Pharisees and mockers didn’t believe Jesus either before or after he had given his “sign”, so it shouldn’t surprise us that today there are plenty of doubters.  To them the whole idea is foolishness – and they keep looking in vain for something to satisfy their deepest needs; but to those of us who believe, this sign is the power of God for our salvation.  This sign is the fulfillment of our deepest needs.  It gives us the supreme confidence to march ahead toward the great and terrible Day of the Lord without fear of what it will bring, for here the Lord shows us his great love and promise of eternal life.

            Meanwhile, all around us we see the evidence that time is running out.  The coming judgment is certain.  And all around us is the anxiety of those who are looking for something to cling to when time does run out and they have to face the Judge.  They are looking for signs in the times, and asking the question, “What time is it?”  It is my prayer for the New Year that each of us will be a beacon of light in the darkening times, so that these desperate people will see our holy and godly lives and know that we have the watch God has given us ... so that they’ll know that we know what time it is.  And when they ask, my prayer is that we will be able to tell them the answer:  to be able to explain that today is the Day of Grace, the time for repenting of sins and receiving the salvation earned for us by the Son of God by his death and resurrection.  So that in both our words and actions we may extend God’s grace to others by proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.  God grant it to us soon, in Jesus’ Name.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!