New Year's Eve

(Audio)

Luke 12:35-40; Romans 8:31-39; Isaiah 30:8-17

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The LORD is the source and origin of time. God is eternal, which means that He is outside of time, having no beginning and no ending. But God is also a creator, and in His first creative act so began time. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Before that creative act there was only God, having no beginning or end; after that creative act there was God and everything else. We are the culmination of the everything else. We are the beneficiaries of the everything else. Only humankind was created in the image of our Creator, and God placed humankind on earth to be its steward, to use it and benefit from it, to care for and to protect it.

That is our purpose, our calling, our vocation – to care for and to protect God’s creation, and to use it for our benefit, and for the benefit of others, all to the glory of God. Now, this implies several things at once. The creation is the LORD’s, not ours. All things are His, but He has given us dominion over creation to steward and to manage it well so that people are provided for, and the LORD is glorified. And since the LORD has provided us all things, we have all that we truly need, for the LORD knows what we need, and He graciously provides us all things that we need for our bodies and our lives. Therefore, we need not be anxious about not having, or about not having enough, and we may freely share of what we have with others knowing that God will continue to provide what He knows that we need.

In this way we get to participate in God’s ongoing creation. God is a creator, He is a father, and a life-giver, and we, created in His image, were created to share in His ongoing creative work. We get to care for, protect, and cultivate the plants and the animals, the rivers and the oceans, the fields, and the forests of the world He has made, just as our First Parents did in the garden. The LORD works with and through men and women, husbands and wives, to bring forth children that are to be instructed in the fear and the knowledge of the LORD and His word. Passing on this stewardship to the next generation is part of our vocation and our worship of the LORD. Indeed, in Hebrew thinking, it is insufficient to merely raise your own children in the faith, but the faith must be passed on to the third and fourth generation.

Since the LORD is the source and the origin of all things and of time itself, and we, His creatures, participate in the ongoing care and preservation of His creation and in the pro-creation of children, we have work to do, work that glorifies His holy Name. This means that we were created, not merely to receive from His bounteous grace, but to bear His fruit in our lives, words, and deeds in service of others to the glory of His holy Name. This means that time, our time, the time of our lives, is sacred time. And that is why we are gathered here this evening, to celebrate another year of life under God’s grace, giving thanks for all that we have received and asking His blessing as we begin another year in His grace.

Time is a gift of the LORD along with everything else. However, our experience of time is necessarily one of change and loss. Nothing lasts forever, and everything ages and dies. This fact puts things in perspective for us. Nothing lasts forever, everything ages and dies, except the LORD, the source, origin, author, and creator of all things and all life. Only the LORD and His word, which remain forever. Consider then what a blessing and a gift it is that the LORD has given us to be stewards of His creation, and how much He must love us that, despite our sinful rebellion, to worship the created rather than the Creator, He did not destroy us, but rather sacrificed His own Son to redeem us and restore us. Yes, the LORD loves us, and He loves others through us. Yes, we are stewards of His love, grace, and mercy as well as of His creation.

Jesus speaks of this stewardship in a number of ways in the Gospels. In our reading from St. Luke this evening Jesus compares us to servants waiting for their master to return home. The servants do not know when the master will arrive, so they strive to be prepared for his arrival at any time. What are they to be doing while their master is away? “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,” Jesus says, “so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” We can presume that the servants are to be found doing the jobs, the vocations, they are supposed to be doing, being good stewards of the master’s home and managing it well. However, Jesus doesn’t mention any specific works, for that is not the point, but rather He emphasizes their being awake and dressed ready to open the door when he knocks. This analogy is similar to Jesus’ teaching in the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins which we heard on the Last Sunday of the Church Year. Whether it is servants or virgins, they are to be found watching and waiting in hopeful expectation for the return the Lord. They are to have their lamps prepared and burning with oil to spare should He come at the second or the third watch of the night.

Watching and waiting for the coming of the Lord in hopeful expectation while managing the gifts the LORD has given you stewardship over is the fulfillment of the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” What does this mean? “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” If you are watching and waiting for the coming of the Lord, then the Lord is the focus of all you are and do. And if the Lord is the focus of all you are and do then you will be a good steward of His creation, rightly loving both God and neighbor. Jesus says that such faithful servants are blessed. They are blessed in and through their vocations, their stewardship, being and doing what they were created to be and to do. And they will be rewarded: “Truly, I say to you, [the master] will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.” Indeed, our lives and stewardship in this world, even though it is full of sin and evil, temptations, tribulation, suffering, sorrow, and death, is preparation and training for life that cannot die in the new earth that is to come. And so, our watching and our waiting and the sacred time of our lives has a goal and a purpose beyond time and beyond death. And so, we live our lives in hopeful expectation and joy, even hastening the coming day of our Lord’s return, and we share His gifts and His love with all knowing that it is not and cannot be loss, for it is the Lord’s and He provides us all that we need and more.

This is our purpose, our calling, our vocation. However, Jesus also warns that He is coming at an hour we cannot know or expect, like a thief in the night. Therefore, we must be prepared at all times. At all times means at all times. But, let’s be honest, we are not always watching and waiting, are we? In fact, we are often distracted by pleasures, cares, and anxieties of life, and, like the ten virgins, sometimes we become drowsy and fall asleep. Therefore, observances like this one, the beginning of a new year, can be a helpful reminder that we are but strangers here in this world which is not our true home, that are lives are brief and fleeting in comparison to the eternity we will enjoy when our Lord returns, and therefore we must reform our perspective and repent of the idols we have made for ourselves and have worshipped and return to the LORD in repentance, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

Our God is for us. Who can be against us? What is there to fear? Our God has graciously given us all things needful, even His Son to purchase us from sin and death. Let us recommit ourselves to the Lord as a new year begins. Let us continue to receive His good gifts with thanksgiving and share them with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and with our neighbors who do not know Him, that His name should be glorified.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.