when i feel i'm slipping further away

well, i remember that everyday, i get a little bit closer / to you

A sermon on Jesus' sermon to end all sermons:

Well, Jesus certainly got our attention with that one. Didn’t he? With this passage, Jesus strikes upon something we’re all deeply invested in: time. And Jesus strikes at the heart of the matter, too. Time, says Christ, is winding down.

Now, on one hand, we all already know this. Don’t we? We’ve all felt the passage of time. We can all tell that time inexorably goes in one direction only. We’ve all had that uncanny experience of noticing the slippage of time in real-time!

On the other hand, though, we don’t believe it. Do we? At least we don’t live like we believe it, not really. We all carry on as if time doesn’t have our number. We all live as if the present will continue indefinitely. 

Of course, it goes without saying that it never does. And I’m not just talking about the certainty of change, either. I’m talking about the inevitable conclusion of all things. I’m talking about the fact that time itself is closing in on each and every last one of us. And not just us, either. But, as Jesus says, on history itself.

But that’s not as scandalous of a statement as it once was. Is it? We now live in a time when many are openly pessimistic about the future. This stage in history is often referred to as late-stage capitalism. And the assumption behind that cynical phrase is that we’ve already burned through whatever resources we may need to rescue ourselves. 

That kind of fatalism, though, is really just another version of the same logic! The belief that this is all there is, is just one more way we all live as if the present were the supreme arbiter of reality. Today, though, Jesus comes along and cuts all that short. Time, says Jesus, isn’t all we have. No, says Jesus, the present itself is coming to a conclusion. Time is going somewhere. It has a destination.

…But we all live as if time is something we can use as we see fit. Don’t we? However, time doesn’t actually work that way! Does it? No, it does not. Time just comes to you. And time just slips away from you, too. 

We don’t utilize time. We live in it. And believing WE can manage the flow of time is a fool’s errand! Truthfully, it’s even worse than that! The foolish attempt to manage something like time is the cause of so much unhappiness. 

Then again, it’s not just unhappiness. Is it? What I’m describing is more than just frustration. What I’m describing is something more like despair. I’m talking about quality-of-life stuff here. In fact, as far as Jesus is concerned, what I’m talking about is nothing less than religion.

I know it doesn’t seem religious, though. Does it? In this helter-skelter ol’ world, religion seems quaint and removed from the real problems of real life. Religion is what you get around to when you’ve got the time for it. 

Today, though, Jesus reveals that what’s really happened is that we’ve all really become really religious about time itself. As Luther says in the explanation of the First Commandment, a god is what we fear, love, or trust. And Luther means this as broadly as possible, too. If fear, love, or trust is involved, we’re working in God’s realm, the realm of religion. 

After all, what else is time, if not a modern matter of fear? We’re all running scared that we don’t have enough time. Aren’t we? But we all think we’re just being pragmatic. What Jesus says, though, is that what’s really happened is that we’ve all really become very religious about how we use our time. 

And that’s the trouble! We’re religious about all the wrong stuff! We pour our religious devotion into places that can’t hold it! The rat race never seems to end because it has no end! But we’re all plying all our piety into that fantasy. Aren’t we? And all it’s doing is making us miserable!

…On some level, we can all tell, too. We all know hurrying up won’t really help. But we don’t know what else to do. So we get busy, hoping to get, at least, a little breathing room. But all we usually get is a lot more anxious. Don’t we? 

We all know more work is still waiting for us. And speeding up hasn’t lightened the workload. On the contrary, it’s only increased it! Now, we just have to do the next thing sooner! 

In our religious fervor, we work against our own desires! Instead of cultivating the kind of life we want, we engineer the environment that makes it practically impossible to have! Instead of making time, we take it. Instead of enjoying the moment, we objectify it. And in the process, we become less and less human ourselves. Don’t we?

Jesus was right. Wasn’t he? We are all religious about time! What we’re trying to get out of time is what religion promises, deliverance. 

What we all want is to be delivered from the treadmill. What we all want is to live as if there’s more to life than the daily grind! What we all want is to be free enough to live in the moment. And what we all want is to be free enough to live in the moment without worrying about losing it, too!

What we’ve said is just pragmatism or realism turns out to really be a deep-seated religion in nothing more than the next darn thing! It’s a cancerous faith. It’s an idolatry that’s sapping all our spirits as I speak! And it’s worse than a dead end, too! 

This modern religion without religion has no end at all. It has no end because it’s really nothing! All it leads to is a contemptible death before death! Our zeal for time kills. It leads to a living death, a death where we may be alive, but we’re dead to everything that really counts. 

…This harrowing observation helps you appreciate the plain wisdom in Jesus’ word that we must DIE before we can live. So long as you desperately cling to life, you crush the possibility of really living it! Our efforts to keep our life doom us to a shabby imitation of the real thing. Paradoxically, though, once you lose your grip on life, you find yourself really living it. 

But that can be really terrifying. Can’t it? I don’t know about you, but those times I’ve lost my hold on life are some of the scariest ones. The truth is, we hold on to life so tightly because the prospect of losing it is so frightening. The deeper truth, though, is that never really living is really a lot more scary!

That disaster, though, predicts Jesus, is really just the entryway to real life! When Peter, James, John, and Andrew come to Jesus asking for a sign, Jesus rejects their proposition out of hand! First of all, says Jesus, the things we tend to think are signs aren’t really signs. And fixating on them makes us susceptible to being led astray anyway. 

Secondly, prophesies Jesus, when the end does come, there will be nothing subtle about it. No one will miss it. The exact timing, however, isn’t given. Not even the Son knows. 

This seems to be a piece of divine graciousness, too. That information is not for us to know. Consider carefully, could you bear it? Would you really want to know? 

Yes, we think we want to know. But my hunch is, knowing the exact day and hour would ruin us! That information would stop us from ever really fully living a single instant in our entire lives! In the back of our minds, we’d constantly be brooding over that Last Day. Wouldn’t we?

So, instead of burdening us with that divine knowledge, God, in great mercy, has held it back. Besides, it’s totally beside the point! Life is not a matter of living for the end. Rather, it’s to be so alive that when the end does come, you’re finally ready.

More importantly, though, says Jesus, the end isn’t really the end. The end of all this is really just turning the corner of history. Yes, it will be unsettling. And yes, it may be frightening, too. But on the other side is Christ himself!

Christ is the Alpha AND he’s the Omega. He’s the beginning. AND he’s the end, too! When history is completed, it’ll really be just the beginning of Christ’s eternal reign!

Christ isn’t just your origin. He’s also your destination! And when you find yourself at the end of time itself, you’ll be closer to God than you could ever have imagined! And there are plenty of us here who can testify to this, too. Can’t we?

…Life is made up of many beginnings and endings. And some are more welcome than others. And some are more orderly than others, too. But the real ones, the ones that have shocked us awake to the liveliness of life, are the ones we’ve been most powerfully present to the presence of God. Haven’t they?

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that they were all good. Does it? In fact, it’s often in the hardest beginnings or endings that we pray hardest. And it’s often the beginnings and endings that are truly most destabilizing when we truly discover what a sure foundation Christ is!

What really makes a Christian out of you and me isn’t having everything go our way. And it’s not in mastering life, either. No, what really makes Christians out of us are those moments when life overcomes us. It’s only when we have nowhere else to turn that we really turn to Christ, our master! 

And we don’t do this because we choose to, either. No, we do this because we can’t help it. We don’t have any choice in the matter. But Christ, all-purpose savior that he is, uses those moments to create saving faith in us all the same! In fact, it’s in those moments that the Holy Spirit teaches us to truly sing that old, old song, “Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Ultimately, God has not taken the disasters out of life. But what God has done is, in Christ, become your life in the midst of those disasters! And that’s why it’s really no disaster at all when you lose your death grip on life. First of all, it’ll be the beginning of real freedom. More importantly, though, it’ll also be the beginning of real faith!

And when that happens, time itself will come back to you! Time only runs in one direction. And that’s true. But Christ is the fullness of time! And in him, you have recourse to the full course of time!

In Christ, you can forgive your past. In Christ, you can ask for forgiveness for what you’ve done in the past, too. And in Christ, you can have assurance about the future. In fact, in Christ, you can have hope for the future, as well. And in this full spectrum of time, you can find peace in the present. 

That’s just the beginning, too! In Christ, time will begin to come to you as the gift it’s been all along! No longer will you have to harness time. Instead, you will be free enough to receive it from the hand of God!

This is called reality. And it’s so much better than you know. It is even right NOW bursting with it’s own God-given givenness. And you don’t have to do anything to attain it, either. In fact, trying to grasp it is the surest way to ensure you never get it! But once you can’t manage that anymore, it’ll all start to come to you of it’s own compassionate accord!

…But I can’t talk you into this. You can only experience it. Luckily, I guess, life is full of these endings. The part that isn’t luck, though, is whether or not you get a preacher when that happens—because it does.

And today, by decree of God Thyself, you DO! It’s all been leading to this! Somewhere, you are going through some end. It might be no big deal. Or it might be a real big deal. But the thing that’s all the same is that God, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is there!

And the Triune God isn’t just there, either. No, God is taking that end and using it to make a beginning of faith for you! Remember, Christ is your Alpha. AND he’s your Omega, too! When Christ died, he took all our endings upon himself. And in his resurrection, he bent those endings to his ever-new and always-eternal beginning!

When you come to the end of your rope, you’re really at the beginning of everything CHRIST has in store for you! And all of us are there in some part of our life at this very instant. What you would never guess, though, is that those endings are really nothing more than the beginning of faith and that wild adventure of life that really is life, too!

It’s all beginning for you at long last right now! Keep watch! It’s happening this very instant, right underneath your very nose! Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow, even! 

There’s nothing left to do but die to the heresy that we can control time. And instead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, begin to live to the promise that Christ holds it all in his wounded hands! You can’t prepare yourself for this. And you can’t manage it, either. All you can do is strap in and get swept up in this wild ride of God’s grand design of the redemption of all things!

Whether you know it or not, you’re right where God wants you. If life seems that way to you today, I couldn’t be happier. And if it doesn’t, my heart goes out to you. But the promise that all of us have is that we’re all caught up in this divine caper!

As such, let’s lift our voices and join the song that all creation hums with. And the one we have for today is especially honest about how tough it can be. But it’s also honest about how much more durable Christ’s HARD won promises are, too!

Our hymn of the day is hymn number 327. Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow. Hymn number 327. Throwing ourselves unto this promise, let’s sing of God’s great eternal victory!