Homily for New Year’s Eve 2011
Luke 12:35-43
Once again the world celebrates a New Year’s arrival, and once again the world lags behind the Church. The Church rang in her New Year a month ago. We celebrated with Andrew the Apostle and John the Baptist who proclaimed to our great joy the Advent of our King, Jesus Christ. The world, oblivious to this annual feast of gladness, instead crammed the shopping malls and clogged the internet to satisfy the greed and lust of consumerism run amok. Then the Church gathered for the Christ Mass singing out her Joy to the World and Glory to God in the Highest, hoping against hope, that the world would stop and behold the Savior of the Nations, our Immanuel. Few heard, but rather immersed themselves in the stuff and nonsense of Rudolph and Frosty and a modern day, fictional “Santy Claus” that has no resemblance to the venerable Saint Nicolas from whom it derives its name.
Tonight the Church gathers as much to celebrate the Eve of the Name of Jesus as it does for the eve of a new secular year. We still bask in the Light of Christmas on this its seventh day, remembering the martyrs Stephen, John, and the Holy Innocents who testified with their lives and blood of God’s infinite love and the world’s depraved cruelty. The world, just as unmindful of these Christian feasts as of the season of Advent, immerses itself in the lusts of gluttony, drunkenness and adultery. In other words, it revels in its idolatry, replacing true worship of the Creator with the passions of the creation. For good reason the Church selected the Scripture passages we have heard for our correction and consolation.
Once more the world is unaware and unprepared for the times and seasons that are, as always, under God’s perpetual watch and long-suffering grace. The question tonight is: are you equally unprepared, or living as though you were? Or are you “dressed in readiness” looking and waiting for the salvation of God?
The Israelites of Isaiah’s time faced that question. Assyria, under the tyrant Sennacharib, was eyeing the fertile land of Israel for conquest. What was God’s Holy Nation to do as they faced such a bleak future? Just as they always were bidden: look to their Savior and rest in His power, grace, and protection. “Do not fear!” said Moses to the terrified Israelites standing between Pharaoh’s armies and the depths of the Red Sea. “Stand by and behold the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today.” Or as God spoke through King David, “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” In the face of not merely an uncertain future, but of a threatening one, God told the Israelites to “chill.” More precisely, He told them to return to Him in constant and calming faith. As He had proved time and again, He would protect them. “But you, Israel…‘You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off’; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:8-10.
And what was Israel’s response to such powerful and comforting words? “No!” “No! We will flee upon horses” and “ride upon swift steeds.” In other words, we will put our trust in ourselves, in our armies and our cavalry, and in Egypt our trustworthy ally. That’s where our strength and victory lies, in men and horses, in human plans and devices. “No, God; we don’t need you. We can handle things without your help.”
That was Israel’s heart: stiff-necked rebellion against their God coupled with arrogant self-assurance in their own abilities. And God in His love let them have their way, though He pleaded not to go the way of destruction, for that is what happened. They “fled” all right, and they “rode swift steeds,” but not into victory. Rather, they fled in cowardly retreat as the Assyrians crushed them, leaving a defeated handful behind as a “signal on a hill” warning others of Sennacharib’s might. Rebellious Israel got only what it deserved.
Centuries later, on Palm Sunday, as He prepared to enter His passion, Jesus wept over His beloved people, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” Here was the Prophet greater than Moses and Isaiah proclaiming again the love of God for His sin-loving people, saying, “Stand by, and behold the salvation of Your God which He will accomplish for you.” And that week, the True Israel got what He did not deserve, but bore in His Body everything His people deserved: the utter destruction that is the wage of sin, namely death and damnation.
Tonight your Savior, who bore all of your sins, says to you, the New Israel, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” You won’t find those words in the Gospel reading. They are found in the verse immediately preceding our text, but they are an essential context for our lesson. When Jesus said, “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,” it was in the course of telling His disciples of God’s constant love, care, and provision for His beloved children. “And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” He said in verses 29-34. Then we hear those blessed words of our Gospel.
“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.” Look there! Christ and His Church are all for celebrating on New Year’s Eve. And why not? We Christians have a foot in the temporal kingdom as well as the eternal. We more than the world have reason to recollect and celebrate tonight. But our recollections and celebration are very different from the world’s. And that is what Jesus wants us to remember.
While the world revels in greed and lust, the Church—all those who put their trust in Christ—worships the True God, and His Only Son, Jesus. And in the repentance of our sins of this past year, as well as the remembrance for God’s forgiveness and provisions, we shall stand by and behold the salvation of our God. Jesus shall “dress us in readiness,” clothing us always in His righteousness that allows us to stand before God as forgiven sinners. Our “lamps will be alight” with a faith in Christ that says we belong to Him alone. And we will be waiting, even as we are this night, for our Master to come and serve us with the richest feast of grace and love ever imagined: His own Body and Blood in the Holy Supper, a foretaste of that eternal banquet we shall enjoy with Him in heaven.
That is, if we endure with Him.
Tonight many of us will party and ring in the New Year with friends, co-workers, and acquaintances. And many will be tempted to sin. We will be tempted to over-drink and over-indulge, and lured into adulterous flirtations or even affairs. Flee from such temptations. Go to your parties and indeed enjoy the God-given gifts of food and drink and friendship. But go as a servant of your Master, Jesus, and let your light shine as a child of God. That way your celebration will be more than fun, it will be blessed by your heavenly Father.
Still, something larger and longer than a night of partying is before us, and that is the New Year. This year we all will be tempted to sin just as the ancient Israelites did. Tempted to trust our future days to our own strength and abilities. Lured into following the plans and schemes of godless men and women who know nothing of the ways and wisdom of our Lord. We will go on our way with little or no thanks to God for His provisions, and even less prayer for His help. If we do worship Him and ask for His aid, it will be with an eye to the devil and a backup plan of our own making. These are the temptations we will face and we must flee from these, too. But rest assured we can, because God will accomplish our salvation for us.
As we face an uncertain, or even a dangerous or terrifying future, let us hold fast to the enduring words and promises of God: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” And isn’t that exactly what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote our epistle lesson?
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that, who was raised-who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In that hope and trust, enter into and receive with thanksgiving a blessed New Year. Amen.
