PUT ON THAT ARMOR OF LIGHT
- Rev. Dr. Genie Martin
- Nov 28, 2010
- Series: Advent
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Today is the first day in Advent. Advent is a Latin word that means ‘coming'. This season celebrates and marks the coming of Jesus the Christ into the world. The Advent season is a time of preparation, a time to get things in order. Much of the world is counting down the shopping days left and the days until Santa appears. Certain preparations must be made so that we have gifts ready to give at Christmas. But inside the church, Advent is a time of spiritual preparation. The people of God prepare themselves spiritually for the high feast of Christmas. And so this text from Paul's letter to the Romans exhorts us to get up and get ready.
Hear now the word of God from Romans 13:11-14:
“For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;
let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”. Here ends this reading of God’s holy word.
Have you ever thought we need a spiritual cleaning in preparation for Christmas?
Like the dirt and dust that accumulates in our households or laundry that piles up and needs to be washed these works of darkness collect and happen just in our living out our days. Let’s face it….. LIFE HAPPENS. But all these things God says to lay aside.
Just as you take off your muddy shoes or boots after working in the yard- before you go in the house, so take off anything that is not supportive of a closer relationship with God.
Advent is a time of narrowing down, of focusing in on God. I feel Christmas coming in my bones, with the inevitability of the shorter, darkening days. Our worship too takes on the character of the season-not somber, but sober. We use purple for the royalty of the Christ Child we await.
It is a time of reflection and quiet seriousness. For me, this Advent includes a narrowing down of another kind. With my call having changed from being one of many on a large staff to serving with all of you who take ownership in your ‘church’
and lend a hand in your own special ways. It’s refreshing. I am learning that one of you comes in each Saturday to make sure the space is well heated. Another member keeps our heating and cooling working!
Still another compiles and prints the bulletin each week- and has given his time and talents in this way for many years- while another sends the extra bulletins to the homebound members who can’t get to church. There are those who greet and usher and count the collection and stay to lock up and move the garbage can to the road for pickup.
Why you even have a ‘self-cleaning’ kitchen! Where each person or group that uses it cleans it for the next one. The worship committee came in yesterday and decorated-
giving our worship space a beauty without comparison.
Others come quietly to insulate ceilings, hang window blinds and install the proper fixtures for pictures to be hung. I could go on and on- but you know the vital piece you play in the success of this church.
Narrowing down helps me focus on what really matters. Its about you. This family church and the way we serve Christ in this community and around the world.
We know ‘life happens’ but together we can support one another through good times and bad. I am enjoying the first times- in learning about the traditions that make this such a caring congregation. The Lighting of the Greens in Gibsonville and meeting some families with youth I had not met before. I got to spend an hour chopping vegetables at the Good Shepherd kitchen with a dedicated volunteer from this church- as we talked easily with other volunteers from another Presbyterian church.
I had a seat saved for me at the first funeral of one of the parishoners I used to pastor. The one saving the seat knew the transition would be hard. So narrowing- making choices- centering on God’s will during this season of the year can be good.
Focusing on the essentials- is narrowing and focusing in, stopping by the Whitsett post office where the church receives mail, checking on things here usually only to find
that some other thoughtful soul was a step ahead of me. Locking up, conserving energy are all good things to do as we enter this Advent season. The spirit of narrowing down prepares us also for the work of inner maintenance that is part of Advent spiritual discipline.
When we concern ourselves only with the things we think we need to do before Christmas like shopping, baking, decorating, or whatever to the point of stressing over them we can fail to get the real benefit from necessary preparations in our hearts. Without some vision of the value of individual souls, without some hope for growth and fruition of ministry it would seem absurd to work so hard at plans or programs – if we didn’t have Christ, the head of the church, in charge of our efforts.
We can confidently state that all our narrowing down and focusing in on the essentials do have a purpose. In Advent we affirm that the greatest things can take place right here at Springwood. Narrowing down, focusing in, has everything to do with identifying with our Lord Jesus in his first coming.
Our worship is a response to the mystery of God-especially in this season.
We believe that to forget God is to forget ourselves and to forget our relationship to God.
When we neglect to praise and decline to enter the mystery we do so at our own peril.
It takes such a short lapse to begin to forget altogether.
Scripture passages in Advent particularly remind us that we must narrow down in order to do something; there is an urgency, for “the night is far gone, the day is at hand”. (Rom 13:12)
Advent itself is a kind of night. When we enter this church season we know by calculating the weeks exactly when daylight will emerge in its mid-winter splendor
at the celebration of Christmas. But we choose to forget, to put aside the realization of the coming light so that we may taste the darkness of night more fully, and wait for the joy of Christmas.
“For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day. Don’t be involved in debauchery and licentiousness, or in quarreling or jealousy.” (Romans 13:11 b-14 a)
This is the passage that helped convert Augustine in the late fourth century while he was serving as a teacher in
Then Paul issued the admonition, the stern warning that so caught Augustine’s heart and mind when he was troubled about his own life. The reality is, if we are allowing ourselves to live rotten, immoral lives, we will neither care about spiritual matters, or have any ability to be prepared to receive the promised one of God.
Translated for today it means we are to live with the discipline of the Spirit,
We are to live the discipline of walking the Christian life. It means we are to walk in the light of the Lord. This is a call to live as we know we should live.
If we are to be ready to receive the salvation that God pours out on us through the gift of the Christ child we need to be ready, spiritually ready to receive all God has to give this Christmas.
One writer put it this way. “If we live without boundaries, if we live utterly self-serving lives, if we live without regard for God’s direction, when the Promised One comes what is offered will slide off of our souls as if they were made of Teflon.” Author unknown).
Augustine was brilliant, along with being haughty and arrogant. He knew that his life was a mess. He wanted to change, but he was spiritually weak. He tells us in The Confessions that he prayed, "Give me chastity and continence, but do not give it yet!"
Richard L. Harrison. Augustine, Confessions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), Book 8, chapter 7.
I wonder how often could we, each of us, pray such a prayer? We may want to wait a bit longer before undergoing a reformation of the soul, but Advent comes along each year- ready or not Advent reminds us: The Christ child is coming soon. Get ready. Advent is a time for people who know better finally to do better.
And remember- such living does not earn us salvation;
rather, living as a Christian, as a person of faith, prepares our souls to receive what God is freely offering to us-grace through Jesus Christ.
Paul’s final verse from Romans 13 says it starkly and simply, "put on the Lord Jesus Christ." When we were children, if our parents knew that someone very special, or someone very dear was coming to visit, we were made "presentable."
Our faces and hands were washed, and we were dressed in at least clean clothes if not special clothes.
So it is in Advent. Someone special is coming. As Augustine heard the voice of a child chanting something that sounded like "take up and read, take up and read," so the themes of Advent call upon us to "put on the Lord, put on the Lord." PUT ON THAT ARMOR OF LIGHT and thereby be ready to receive the gift of the one who is coming. For we- brothers and sisters in Christ- believe that Christ has come, Christ does come, and Christ will come again. Amen.
