January 27, 2019
What is the value of time? What is the significance of a year, a month, a week, a day?
A friend passed these thoughts on to me:
To realize the value of one year, ask a student who has failed his final exam.
To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of one day, ask a daily wage laborer with ten children to feed.
To realize the value of one hour, ask lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of one minute, ask a person who has missed the train.
To realize the value of one second, ask a person who has survived an accident.
To realize the value of one fraction of a second, ask the person who has just won an Olympic silver medal.
What is the value of time? What is the significance of a year, a month, a week, a day? What is the importance of today?
Luke knows the value of time. He knows the magnitude of today. For, Luke tells us that, when Jesus was nearing Jerusalem, he passed through the town of Jericho. There were crowds of people. There was much noise and shouting. But there was one shouting above all the others. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus looked for the voice. He found the voice. It was the voice of a blind man. He said to him, “What is it you want?”
The man said, “I want my sight back.”
And Jesus said, “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.” And the man followed Jesus and gave praise to God.
Then, a little farther on in Jericho, Jesus saw a man in a tree. It was Zaccheus. Zaccheus was a head tax collector. He was very rich. And he was very short. So, when the crowds lined the streets to greet Jesus, he couldn’t see a thing. Then Zaccheus spotted a sycamore tree. He climbed the tree in order to get a look at Jesus.
When Jesus saw this little man up in the tree, he said, “Zaccheus, come down from the tree. I must visit your house today.” Zaccheus was overjoyed. He got down and took Jesus home, while everyone else grumbled, “Why is he going home with the crook?”
But Zaccheus said, “Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone on their taxes, I will repay them four times what I owe them.”
Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Then Jesus went on into Jerusalem. There happened the events with which we are so familiar – the Parade of Palms, the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial, Pilate’s trial. And then Jesus was taken to be crucified. He was hung on a cross between two thieves. People walked by. They harassed him. They made fun of him.
Even one of the criminals did the same. He cursed at him. “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!”
But the other said, “Don’t you fear God? Aren’t you sorry for what you’ve done wrong? He is getting the same punishment we’re getting. You and I deserve it, but he doesn’t. He’s done nothing wrong.”
Then he turned to Jesus and said, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was baptized and told by a voice from heaven who he was. The Spirit led him into the desert for a time of testing, so he could find out who he wasn’t. Then he began to teach in the synagogues.
So, when he came to his hometown, Nazareth, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, because that’s what he always did. He stood up to read and an attendant handed him the scroll of Isaiah. He looked through the scroll and found the passage he wanted to read, the passage that most clearly told who he was and why he had come. He read:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
Jesus handed the scroll back to the attendant. He sat down. Every eye in the place was on him. He began to say to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
What is the value of time? What is the significance of today?
Today is the day you can realize your need for God. Today is the day when you can recognize and confess your own sinfulness. Today is a day when those sins can be forgiven, because today is the acceptable year of the Lord. It is a day of jubilee, when all debts are cancelled, all homelands restored, all sins forgiven.
Today is a day that you can say, with the blind man, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” and then follow him on the road. Today is a day that you can say, with the tax collector, Zaccheus, “I will share what I have with the poor and I will make amends with whomever I have wronged.” Today is a day when you can say, with the humble thief, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
And Jesus will say to you, “Today salvation has come to this house! Today you will be with me in paradise! Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing!”
Today is a day of forgiveness, salvation and restoration. Today is also a day when you can respond to the call of God.
When I was in seminary, I heard many, many sermons. I only remember a two of them. One of them was preached by Dr. John Stensvaag, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, in St. Paul. Since I was only at Luther one year, I never had a class from him. When I saw him around campus, he appeared to me to be a stern old Norwegian. So, I braced myself when I knew that he was preaching. But his sermon was wonderfully pastoral and it was just the sermon I needed to hear.
He preached on Esther. Esther was a beautiful, young Jewish woman, who lived in Persia. She was selected in a beauty contest by King Xerxes to be his queen, after he had gotten rid of his previous wife for being too uppity. When Hamman, an advisor to Xerxes, convinced him to get rid of all the Jews in the kingdom, Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, when to her to ask her to intercede with the king on their behalf in order to save her people. At first, she was hesitant. Even to enter into the presence of the king without being asked was to risk immediate death. And after all – what could she do? She was young. She had no authority. She had no skills. She was only a woman.
But then Mordecai said, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” So, the young and beautiful Esther hatched a plan and, despite what she perceived as her own limitations, she was able to save many of her people from destruction.
At Luther, I was in my last year of seminary – just one more year and I would finally be a pastor. It was my fifth year of post-college. Not only that, I had been going to school for 22 straight years, ever since I entered kindergarten. And I loved school, but I was done. I just wanted to get this over, so that next year I could begin doing my real work.
But when I heard Dr. Stensvaag talk about Esther, I began to reconsider. “Perhaps it is for just this time that you have been called.” Maybe it wasn’t just for next year I was being called. Maybe it was even that year, that day, that I was called to study, to prepare for the work that I would be doing. I didn’t have to wait to do what God wanted me to do. I was doing in then and there. I was doing it that very day.
It’s tempting for churches in transition to want to get it over as quickly as possible. I understand that. It’s a time of uncertainty. It’s hard not knowing who will be leading worship, who will be preaching, and who will be visiting you in the hospital.
But this interim time is also an important time. Since there is no permanent pastor to lead you, this a time to renew your connections with each other. It is a time to look at yourselves and your ministry. It is a time to ask, “To what ministry, to what mission is God calling us? Is it the same as what we’ve been doing? Or is it something new?”
Perhaps it is for just this time that you have been called – not several months from now, not when you finally have a settled pastor, not even at some time in the future when you think you’ll finally have gotten your act together – but right now. Now is the time to which you have been called. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today.
What is the value of time? What is the importance of today? There is no time like the present. There is no time like today. There is no time like today for knowing our need for God. There is no time like today for seeking God’s presence. There is no time like today for responding to the call of love. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today.
For today salvation has come to this house! Today you will be with me in paradise! Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing! Today!
Comments
Post a Comment