Sermon for 11/20/22: Last Sunday of the Church Year

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Repent and Pray

I Thessalonians 5:1-11

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

At some time in the past, this last Sunday in the Church Year was observed among some Lutheran churches as Repentance and Prayer Sunday. This is certainly a fitting approach to this last Sunday. Today our thoughts turn to last things: the Last Day; the return of Jesus, the Bridegroom, to gather His Church; and our need to be prepared for that return, as reflected in today’s Gospel. In his 95 Theses, Luther began with this assertion: “The entire life of the Christian should be one of repentance.” Every day is a day of repentance. But if we are honest, we will admit that our human frailty makes us prone to spiritual “drowsiness.” It is a good and salutary thing that we be given a bit of a jolt to awaken us to our daily need for repentance and prayer.

We need to repent and pray because either death or Judgment Day will eventually overtake us. God’s unerring Word tells us that; that is as sure and certain as anything can be. These Thessalonians believed that the Day of the Lord’s return would come in their lifetime. St. Paul had taught them about the signs that would precede our Lord’s return in judgment. But for some reason, they had gotten the impression that those who were still alive when that Day came would have some advantage over those who had died. The Day of Judgment was an unceasing topic of conversation with them, and uppermost in their minds was the “when.”

There is certainly nothing unique about the concerns of these Thessalonians. Luther himself was convinced that his generation would be the last to know life on this earth. Many were the times when he opined that the earth was so evil that the Lord could not let such things go on much longer. 500 years later, many of us have thought and said the same things. And we have good reason for thinking and saying such things. This is an evil world that seems to be in a hurry to go to hell.

Like those Thessalonians, we are as sure of the coming of the Lord as is a woman with child that she will give birth. And that comparison is an apt one, as any woman who has given birth to a child can testify. She knows the struggle that goes on inside her body as the end of her time draws near. She feels for herself the kicking and pushing that precedes the emergence of the child. But she cannot say with precision when that will occur. In the same way, we do not know when Jesus will return. Yes, we know that He will come! But perhaps we are unmindful of what the return of Jesus must mean to us. We, too, often need an awakening jolt. We need to be reminded often that, without repentance, without sorrow for sin and the desire to be rid of it, there can be no real preparation.

We need to repent and pray because we know that Day will come, as Paul says, “...like a thief in the night.” It will occur when we least expect it. We may or may not have some warning that our death is near. But there will be no warning about the return of the Lord beyond what has already been given to us in the Word. And yet, that doesn’t mean we should be afraid of our own shadows. Instead, we should faithfully go about our callings in life with all the hope and confidence that belong to the faithful of Christ.

In other words, we can be prepared. For the baptized child of God, repentance is a daily thing. We daily acknowledge our sin and seek the forgiveness of God. We pray that our faith would be strengthened against the temptations that would lead us away from our Lord as the End of days draws near. And in this there is a real and godly confidence that comes as we live daily in sight of our own end or the Lord’s return, whichever comes first for us.

And we need to repent and pray because we are set apart for salvation through the atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul raises this issue here because he wants us to grieve over the death of Jesus rather than over the thought of our own. His was the real death, suffered under all the wrath of God; our death is merely sleep because He died to save us. The slumber of our bodies in the grave is only preparation for their reuniting with our souls on that Day when our Lord returns to judge the living and the dead. This sure and certain salvation is what repentance and faith cling to.

On this last Sunday in the Church Year, let us repent of our sin and pray for the strength of God to uphold us in the times that are ahead, however many or few those days may be, however full of struggle and affliction they may be. For we know with certainty, as St. Paul says here: “God has not destined us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him.” And so we pray with the whole Church on earth and with the whole host of heaven: “Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!” In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.