Hold Your Head High...Jesus is Coming!

 [This sermon is based on the Gospel lesson for this coming Sunday, December 1, 2024, the First Sunday of Advent. Congregations without pastors or whose pastors are unable to deliver sermons this week may feel free to use it if you find it helpful.]

The Gospel Lesson: Luke 21:25-36

During a recent eleven-day stay at a hospital in Rouen, France, one of my nurses keyed words in her native French onto the Google Translate app of her smartphone, then told me in English, “You’re too brave. You should cry.” Her words were kind and I didn’t feel brave. But I knew this was not a time for crying. 

I was in the hospital because I had acquired salmonella bacteria somewhere in England. By the time we arrived in France for a river cruise, I was sick. I got sicker over the next three days. I became severely dehydrated, my kidneys shut down, the defibrillator in my chest was activated, and, at one point, I collapsed in our bathroom. I was only sporadically aware of my surroundings when I was taken by ambulance to a major hospital. I was aware enough to know how hard all of this was on my wife, that my earthly life hung in the balance, and that I needed to pray. 

I didn’t cry though. The reason was simple. By the power of God’s life-saving Word about Jesus Who died and rose for sinners like me, by this Word that gives me the holy gifts of repentance and faith in Christ, I know who I belong to. I know that Jesus had once uttered a Word from the cross that applies to me as much as it did to the crowds who growled for His death on Good Friday, as much as it applies to you: “Father, forgive them [forgive him, forgive her], for they do not know what they are doing.” I didn’t cry because I know that Jesus is the Savior Who has erased the power of sin and death over sinners like me. And like all believers in Jesus, I can say with Saint Paul, “there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:8) I didn’t cry because I knew–I know–through the faith in Jesus God has given to me through Word and Sacrament, that Jesus, crucified and risen, has accounted this sinner righteous in the eyes of God. I have been made fit by Christ Himself, to live with God forever. With that old Easter hymn, I can say, that in Jesus Who fought to save me at cross and empty tomb, “The strife is o’er, the battle done; Now is the Victor’s triumph won! Now be the song of praise begun. Alleluia!”

The Gospel lesson for this First Sunday of Advent, finds Jesus with His disciples during Holy Week. A short time before, Jesus had cleansed the temple of extortionists who exploited people who had come to worship and offer sacrifices to God. Not long after the events recounted in today’s lesson, Jesus will be arrested, tried, and nailed to a cross for our sins, then rise from the dead to set believers eternally free of sin, death, and condemnation. At this moment though, Jesus is talking with the disciples.

One of them has commented on how beautiful the temple is. But Jesus tells the disciples that soon–in an event which we know happened in 70 AD–the temple, where people repeatedly offered sacrifices for their sins, would be destroyed. The temple, of course, would no longer be necessary because Jesus is the one perfect sacrifice that destroys the hold of sin and death over us; all who trust in Jesus have everlasting reconciliation and life with God. But the temple was such a central part of the lives of good Jews like Jesus’ first disciples that, shocked, they asked, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” (Luke 21:7)

Jesus proceeds to tell the disciples about all the events and circumstances that will surround the destruction of the temple. Soon though, Jesus shifts to a discussion of the events and circumstances that will surround the end of the heavens and the earth of this creation. 

This old creation exists under a death sentence. When Adam and Eve, our ancestors, fell into sin, they ushered chaos, death, and darkness not just into the lives of each of us, all of whom will one day die, but into the whole created order God once made in love for us. 

And so Jesus tells the disciples and us that, “there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Luke 21:25-26) Some will try to brave it out or laugh it off. But in the end, all who place their hopes in what this dying creation has to offer will cry. The end of this universe and the ends of their lives will give rise to grief and tears.

Their sadness and grief will only be heightened when they see, as all people then living will and as all called out of their graves by Jesus will, what Jesus says will come next at the end of this cosmos. “And then,” Jesus says, “they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27)

At that moment, for many, the crying will really begin. Why? Because, having refused to take seriously Jesus’ call to repent, that is, to turn away from sin–away from putting their hope in anything or anyone other than God, away from honoring God’s holy name, away from joining God’s people and gladly hearing His Word, away from honoring parents and those in authority, away from cherishing others’ lives, away from reserving sexual intimacy for the beds of husbands and wives, away from respecting the property and reputations of others–after refusing to repent, then refusing to trust in Jesus for forgiveness, hope, and life, they will know they stand naked before God in their sin. They will know there is no hope for them, no one to go to bat for them as Jesus pronounces their sentence: “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness…” (Matthew 7:23)

But for those who have welcomed Jesus, at the baptismal font, at the Communion table, in the Word proclaimed, taught, and shared, Jesus’ coming at the end of this world will be a time of rejoicing. 

They will eagerly crane their necks to see their Savior Jesus Who will tell them–Who will tell you, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34) 

And then you, dear saint, who by the power of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, believe in Him as your Lord, God, and King, you will be ushered into the new heaven and the new earth, and incorruptible and indestructible eternal kingdom in which God will wipe every tear from your eye and where sin, and death, and slights, and arguments, and wars, and pain will be no more! 

This creation will be burnt and dissolved, but you who believe will be forever new in the presence of the One Who made you and died for you and rose for you.

And so, as we watch this world lurch toward its end point and as we ourselves age and decay, Jesus says, “when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28) Whether any given day is your best day or your worst day, Christian, you can hold your heads up and hope because even now, you are one day closer to seeing Jesus. And then, you will see the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to you: “the one who endures [the one who daily repents, daily turns to Jesus, daily receives forgiveness and new life through Jesus, the one who endures] to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) 

What a promise! Don’t yield to anxiety and fear. Hold your heads high, pray, and watch. Jesus is coming and all will be well.

Jesus tells you today: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Luke 21:33) And the Savior Jesus, by His death and resurrection, shows you that His promise is true…and that it is true for you.

Amen!

 

How to Use the Gift of Time

[This was shared this morning during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church.]

Luke 21:25-36

Today is the first Sunday of the first season of the Church Year, Advent. Advent means coming, as in “Christ came to us on Christmas day” and “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

When Christ comes back, He will finally and completely establish His kingdom with those of us who have, as the Bible says, “longed for His appearing” and have endured in faith in Him alone. Advent reminds us of this truth.

But when will Christ return? 

Under what circumstances? 

And what does it all have to do with you and me? 

Jesus addresses these questions in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 21:25-36. At the outset, Jesus says: “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world...”

We read these words and, being clever, we figure that the end of this world and the return of Jesus must be close at hand. And that’s true. An old friend approached me recently and asked, "So, do you think we're getting closer to the day of Jesus' return?" I told him yes, that every day since Jesus spoke the words in our gospel lesson for today, we've been getting closer to Jesus' return.

But a careful reading of the lesson shows us that Jesus doesn’t describe the so-called “signs of the times” so that clever people like us can make predictions about the future. In Acts 1:7, Jesus tells us, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority”

By talking about the signs of His coming back to the world with His kingdom, Jesus was not really making predictions about the future at all.

Slip down to verse 32 in our Gospel lesson. There, Jesus says: “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Jesus is saying that all of the drama, killings, terrorist attacks, damaging earthquakes, and wars that He said must precede His return would all take place within the lifetimes of the first people to whom He spoke these words in the first-century AD.  

It’s because all of the signs of the end that Jesus spoke about with His disciples had already taken place twenty centuries ago that many early Christians began doubting Jesus and their faith in Him. “If Jesus hasn’t come back yet, despite the mess the world is in,” they reasoned, “maybe He never will come back. Maybe Jesus isn’t good for His word.”

Peter wrote to Christians dealing with these kinds of doubts and questions in 2 Peter 3:9, where he says: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” “You Christians overcome by the hardships you undeniably endure in this life,” Peter was saying, “get over yourselves!” It's not bad advice for us either.

Today, on the authority of God’s Word, given through Peter, we know that Christ hasn’t come back to this world yet because He loves those who don’t know Him and need Him.

These people need time to hear the Gospel, the good news of new and everlasting life through Christ.

They need time to turn from sin, time to embrace the gift of faith in Christ. 

That group of people includes you and me, people who need to turn from the obsessions du jour and turn to Christ for grace and to ask Him to daily call the shots over our lives.

And here’s the key takeaway for you and me as Christians this morning: Christ has also delayed coming back in order to give you and me the time we need to share with our neighbors and world the message about Christ and the salvation that comes from having a relationship with Jesus Christ alone.

Our call as Christians is clear: By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we know that we've been "justified," counted guiltless for our sins despite our guilt. By grace through faith in Jesus, you and I are OK with God. So now, we’re to love our neighbors enough to help them to follow Christ and to be OK with God, too.

And how do we do that? By putting the faith we here confess into action seven days a week: 

• sharing Jesus with those who have nothing to do with Him or His Church; 
• inviting them to join us for worship or Sunday School or Bible study; 
• showing mercy and forgiveness to people who have hurt us (just like Christ did for us on the cross and does for us); 
• listening to the hurts of others and offering to pray with them and pray for them; 
• serving others in the Name of Jesus; 
• owning up to it when others confront us for the ways our words or actions or indifference have hurt them; 
• giving food to the hungry; 
• taking time each day to read God’s Word, offer prayer, and tell others about Christ;
• and, if you're a parent, sharing a prayer with your child every night before they go to bed. (This is a powerful witness, I have learned.) 

These action items for life aren't requirements for those who want life with God; they're ways for people grateful for Christ, His cross, and His empty tomb to express thanks for the life with God that Jesus has already given to us as a free gift of grace.
 
Jesus tells us in verse 34 “be careful” of ourselves, to stay awake, to stay alert, to what Christ may be calling us to do in any given second.

He tells us this not only so that we can resist temptations that could leave us trapped in sin and death when Christ returns or when we see Him face to face as the judge over our lives. Jesus also tells us to stay awake and alert so that, no matter what’s going on in our lives or in the world, we keep pursuing the commission He has given to us of making disciples of our unbelieving or spiritually-disconnected neighbors. To live as anything other than a disciple of Jesus in this troubling, challenging world is to follow a dead end street leading us to nowhere.

He was aimless and scattered, living on that dead end street. His only goals in life were to have fun and to be seen by others as the smartest guy in the room. A friend would tell him years later, “I worried about you. You just didn’t seem to have any focus, like any wind that came along would carry you to God-knows-where.”

By the grace of God, a wind did come along. It was the Holy Spirit Who carried that young man to a Lutheran church. 

There he found himself, inexplicably, being drawn to interact with a woman more than forty years his senior. 

She took this young man under her wing, put up with his immaturity and flippancy and self-regard, and taught him Who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him as your only God, King, and Savior. 

She taught him about the hope that belongs only to those who follow Christ. 

She taught him how to pray. 

By her words and her actions and her patience, she proclaimed Jesus to that young man. 

And to his amazement, he found that through the ministry of that nearly seventy year old woman and the other followers of Jesus he met in that Lutheran congregation, God had sparked the gift of faith in Jesus Christ within him.

That young man is not so young any more. 

And he’s still a sinner in daily need of the forgiveness and new life that comes to those who entrust themselves to Jesus Christ. 

He makes mistakes all the time. 

But my life has been changed forever. Like the prodigal son of Jesus’ story, I was dead and am alive again, was lost and have been found.

All because a group of Christ-forgiven sinners who made up Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus, including Martha Schneider, grateful for the grace of God given in Jesus Christ to them, shared the Word in its purity and administered Holy Baptism and Holy Communion rightly. 

And this is how the Church, Christ's body in the world, people like you and me, are used by God to make disciples.

Who will you share Christ with this week? 

The clock is ticking. 

We don’t know when Christ will return. We don't know how much time each of us personally has on this earth. 

But we do know that, as surely baby Jesus once came upon a midnight clear, the crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus will return.

This time, His coming won’t come on a silent night. There will be nothing quiet about His judging “the living and the dead,” not on the basis of their works, or church membership, or popularity, or wealth, or power, but solely on the basis of whether we have trusted Him with our lives and let Him cover everything that is sinful and dying about us with His forgiveness and grace. Jesus will come in glory and, when that happens, time for the world and time for you and me will have run out. There will be no more chance for anyone to repent and believe in Him.

Make it your daily aim to share Christ in some way with those who, absent a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, will stand naked in their sins when they meet Jesus, eternally distant from Christ’s grace and forgiveness, facing a Christ-less eternity.

If you had the cure for cancer, you wouldn’t keep it to yourself. As a follower of Jesus, you have something that even the merged pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Allergan don’t have: the cure for sin and death and meaningless life. That cure is Jesus Christ. 

Trust in Him. 

And then, in as many ways as you can every single day, share Him! 

Time is running out.

Stay Awake: Christ is Coming Back Again!

Luke 21:25-36
Today is the first Sunday of the first season of the Church Year, Advent.

Advent means coming, as in “Christ came to us on Christmas day” and “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

When Christ comes back, He will finally and fully establish His kingdom with those of us who have, as the Bible says, “longed for His appearing” and have endured in faith in Him alone. From the early Church, we’ve inherited a simple confession of our faith: “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.” Advent reminds us of these truths.

But when will Christ return? Under what circumstances? And what does it all have to do with you and me?

These are questions Jesus addresses in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 21:25-36. At the outset, Jesus says: “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; [people’s] hearts failing them from fear...the powers of the heavens will be shaken...”

We read these words and, being clever, we figure that the end of this world and the return of Jesus must be close at hand. And that’s true.

But a careful reading of Scripture shows us that Jesus doesn’t describe the so-called “signs of the times” so that clever people can make predictions about the future. In Acts 1:7, Jesus tells His first-century disciples, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.”

By talking about the signs of His coming back to the world with His kingdom, Jesus was not really making predictions about the future at all.

Slip down to verse 32 in our Gospel lesson. There, Jesus says: “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place.”

Jesus is saying that all of the drama, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and terrors of nations that He said must precede His return would all take place within the lifetimes of the first people to whom He spoke these words in the first-century AD. 

It’s because all of the signs of the end that Jesus spoke about with His disciples had already taken place twenty centuries ago that many early Christians began doubting Jesus and their faith in Him. “If Jesus hasn’t come back yet, despite the mess the world is in,” they reasoned, “maybe He never will come back. Maybe Jesus isn’t good for His word.”

Peter wrote to Christians dealing with these doubts and questions in 2 Peter 3:9, where he says: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” “You Christians overcome by the hardships you undeniably endure in this life,” Peter was saying, “get over yourselves!” Today, on the authority of God’s Word, given through Peter, I can tell you that Christ hasn’t come back to this world yet because He loves those who don’t know Him and need Him. These people need time to hear the Gospel, the good news of new and everlasting life through Christ. They need time to turn from sin, time to embrace the gift of faith in Christ.

And here’s the key takeaway for you and me as Christians this morning: Christ has also delayed coming back in order to give you and me the time we need to share with our neighbors and world the message about Christ and the salvation that comes from Christ alone.

Our call as Christians is clear: By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we know that we've been "justified," counted guiltless for our sins despite our guilt. By grace through faith in Jesus, you and I are OK with God. So now, we’re to love our neighbors enough to help them to follow Christ and to be OK with God, too.

And how do we do that?

• By sharing Jesus with them. 
• By inviting them to join us for worship or Sunday School or Bible study. 
• By showing mercy and forgiveness to people who have hurt us. 
• By listening to the hurts of others and offering to pray with and for them. 
• By serving them in the Name of Jesus. 
• By giving food to the hungry.
• By helping to spread the good news of Jesus throughout the world.

That’s why Jesus tells us in verse 34 “to take heed” of ourselves, to stay awake, to stay alert.

He tells us this not only so that we can resist temptations that could leave us trapped in sin and death when Christ returns or when we see Him face to face as the judge over our lives. Jesus also tells us to stay awake and alert so that, no matter what’s going on in our lives or in the world, we keep pursuing the commission He has given to us of making disciples of our unbelieving or spiritually-disconnected neighbors.


He was aimless and scattered. His only goals in life were to have fun and to be seen by others as the smartest guy in the room. A friend would tell him years later, “I worried about you. You just didn’t seem to have any focus, like any wind that came along would carry you to God-knows-where.”

By the grace of God, a wind did come along. It was the Holy Spirit Who carried that young man to a Lutheran church.

There he found himself, inexplicably, being drawn to interact with a woman forty years his senior. She took this young man under her wing, put up with his immaturity and flippancy and self-regard, and taught him Who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him as your only God, King, and Savior.

She taught him about the hope that belongs only to those who follow Christ.

She taught him how to pray.

By her words and her actions and her patience, she proclaimed Jesus to that young man.

And to his amazement, he found that through the ministry of that nearly seventy year old woman and the other followers of Jesus he met in that Lutheran congregation, God had sparked the gift of faith in Jesus Christ within him.

That young man is not so young any more. And he’s still an imperfect sinner in daily need of the forgiveness and new life that comes to those who entrust themselves to Jesus Christ.

But my life has been changed forever. Like the prodigal son of Jesus’ story, I was dead and am alive again, was lost and have been found.

All because a group of imperfect sinners that made up Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Columbus, including Martha Schneider, grateful for the grace of God given in Jesus Christ to them, shared the Word in its purity and administered Holy Baptism and Holy Communion rightly. (This is how the Church, Christ's body in the world, makes disciples.)

Who will you share Christ with this week? The clock is ticking. We don’t know when Christ will return. We don't know how much time each of us personally has on this earth.

But we do know that, as surely He came upon a midnight clear, an unobtrusive baby who would grow to die for our sins and rise to give us life with God, Jesus will return.

This time, there will be nothing silent about His coming. There will be nothing quiet about His judging “the living and the dead,” not on the basis of their works, or church membership, or popularity, or wealthy, or power, but solely on the basis of whether we have trusted Him with our lives and let Him cover everything that is sinful and dying about us with His forgiveness and grace. Jesus will come in glory and time will have run out. There will be no more chance for anyone to repent and believe in Him.

Make it your daily aim to share Christ in some way with those who, absent your witness, absent your love and encouragement, absent your good word from God, will otherwise stand naked in their sins when they meet Jesus, uncovered by His grace and forgiveness, facing a Christ-less eternity.

If you had the cure for cancer, you wouldn’t keep it to yourself. You have the cure for sin and death and meaningless life. That cure is Jesus Christ. Trust in Him. And then, in as many ways as you can every single day, share Him! Amen

[This is the text for the message shared during the 10:15 worship service with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Come, Lord Jesus: How to Face the End (Of the World or Your Earthly Life)

[This message was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning. Today is the First Sunday in Advent.]

Luke 21:25-36
I once read a news story about a young graduate assistant at MIT who was developing what he called, “memory glasses.” Richard W. DeVaul said that he himself could often work for long hours, forgetting to eat or keep appointments. His memory glasses, consisting of a small computer display clipped onto eyeglass frames and hooked up to a small computer, were designed to flash little reminders to the wearer. DeVaul’s “wearable computer” is intended to send subliminal messages or images to wearers, providing them with private reminders.*


Based on his personal experience, DeVaul apparently thinks that we all need help in remembering not to get so caught up in the urgent matters that scream for our attention that we forget what’s important. I think that he's right. A few signs–subliminal or otherwise–pointing us in the right direction each day would be really helpful!

In today’s Gospel lesson, an example of a type of Biblical literature which the Bible scholars call, apocalyptic, from the Greek verb, apocalupto, meaning I reveal, Jesus talks with us about signs, things going on around us that ought to live as His followers in everyday life.

Specifically, Jesus talks about the signs of the end of the world. He begins by telling us: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the power of the heavens will be shaken...”

When the world goes nuts,

When family incomes are drained and jobs are scarce,

When Army psychologists open fire on military personnel preparing to go overseas,

When terrorists perpetrate violence on innocent people,

When seemingly incurable diseases victimize family and friends,

When people are subjected to mistreatment or violence unjustly,

it’s easy to faint from fear and foreboding.

But Jesus warns us to be on our guards, "...so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation [that’s spending time on wasted, worthless efforts] and drunkenness and the worries of this life..."

Instead, Jesus says that we should regard all of the rotten, hard things that happen in this world as signs of His return at the end of the world.

For most people, talk about the end of the world or about the ends of our own lives on earth is frightening. In the face of life’s difficulties, as Jesus says, people faint from fear and foreboding or get caught up in meaningless activity, in anesthetizing themselves with dope or booze, or in allowing themselves to be overwhelmed with worry. They read the headlines or consider the adversities that they themselves face and hang their heads in despair.

We need not do that!

A few weeks ago, I read another full account of a dangerous secret trip taken by our president. Not even his wife or family knew that he was going away to a secret destination, right in the midst of dangerous enemies. You may think I’m talking about former President Bush’s trip to Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day several years ago. But I’m talking about an account of President Franklin Roosevelt’s secret trip to Newfoundland to meet with British prime minister Winston Churchill in the summer of 1941, which I read about again in Jean Edward Smith’s biography of Roosevelt.

Both Roosevelt and Churchill took voyages by sea in waters filled with menacing German submarines. The ship which Churchill took to their summit would, just a few months later, be sunk by the Germans.

The point is that the world was dangerous and prone to craziness sixty-five years ago. The world is dangerous and prone to craziness today. Nothing has changed.

In another place in the Bible, Jesus spoke of the signs of the end of life on this planet and of His return and said that each and every one of them had already happened. So, people who wring their hands and try to outguess God about when Jesus will return are wasting their time, wasting their lives!

Jesus says that the turmoil of the world presents us with signs that point to the inevitable fact that life on this planet will end and that our lives on this planet will end.

Jesus also says that we should see these signs as subliminal prompts, cuing us to adopt a different way of living.

Most of the human race will fall prey to worry or fear or drunkenness or dissipation. But Jesus tells those who trust in Him not to lose heart or hang our heads.

He says: "Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

When things look bleak or frightening, Jesus says, “Buck up. I’m right here! And no matter how things may look right now, I have everything under control!”

He had been standing for three hours in the frigid Michigan winter night, trying to hitch a ride home to his wife and kids in Royal Oak. The wind howled. Snow billowed around him. He was a service man. Originally tapped for Christmas leave, he’d gotten into a drunken brawl that got him confined to his base through the holidays.

Then a buddy’s parents surprised him, traveling to be nearby for Christmas. Since it was going to be easy for the buddy to see his folks, he went to their commanding officer and volunteered to take the Michigander’s place.

That raised a whole new problem. You see, the soldier from Michigan had spent all his savings on gifts for his wife and three children, having planned on shipping them north. He couldn’t afford bus or train fare. The only way he could get back home was to stuff the presents into a duffel bag and hitchhike. Everything had gone pretty well until that three hour wait in the snowstorm.

A single preacher in a Corvette was barreling along too quickly for the road conditions, heading home to see his parents and family, the car filled to near-capacity with goodies. He saw the forlorn soldier, looking like an abominable snowman in khaki green, hitching on the side of the road. He told himself that somebody else would pick the guy up and that if he turned around now, he’d find the soldier gone. But he felt as though God was telling him that at least on Christmas Eve, he should be willing to share Jesus’ love with a stranger.

So, begrudgingly, he turned around and though it required some packing and arranging, got the hitchhiking soldier and duffel bag into his car. After the soldier had thawed out a bit, he asked the preacher, “Didn’t I see you go by earlier?” “Yes.” Why, the soldier wondered then, had he turned back around?

The preacher explained that while he hadn’t wanted to turn around and come back “it’s Jesus Who makes me do things like that,” things that He was certain Jesus would do if He were faced with the same circumstances.

The soldier explained how convicted he felt by that. He then told the story of how he had come to be hitchhiking on that frozen stretch of road on Christmas Eve. He explained that he’d planned on surprising his family. He talked about what a wonderful woman his wife was, a devoted follower of Jesus who was brokenhearted over her husband’s unwillingness to let Christ into his life. He often poked fun at his wife’s faith and her church-going.

The longer he’d stood by the side of the road, the soldier said, the angrier he became at all the people who passed by. He became even angrier when he thought that a lot of the people zooming past were Christians. He thought of what hypocrites all Christians were, but also thought that if he were in their places, he’d probably drive on by too.

Then the soldier said: “Let me tell you something embarrassing—I got so cold, so lonely, and so desperate that I started to pray—honest to God I did—it was so humiliating. I told God that if He would help me, I’d do better. And you know what? About that time you showed up, and you told me that you came back because of Jesus—now what do you make of that?”

Thirty-five years later, John William Smith, the once-young pastor driving in the Corvette, wrote: "Jesus comes to us in many ways. He came to me in the form of a freezing soldier trying to get home for Christmas. He came to a freezing soldier in the form of a young minister trying to find his way to God. Either one of us could have missed Him."

Jesus says that even before the end of time--even before we die and pass into His presence, He wants to come to us. And He doesn’t want to come to us just at Christmas time, but every moment of our lives.

The turmoil of the world and the challenges of our lives can be reminders of our need to welcome Jesus to walk with us, to guide us, to be our God, to be our King.

I know that the next few weeks will be busy for us all. Last-minute shopping, visits with family and friends, extra social engagements. We all have them.

But these next weeks, with all their activity, are also a great time for you to do what that soldier did on that cold Christmas Eve—ask Jesus to help you and to be with you.

Let the signs of the times prompt you to enjoy a close relationship with the God we know through Jesus Christ.

When we let Christ into our daily lives, we’re prepared to handle all that life may bring.

We’re prepared for living.

We’re prepared for dying.

We’re prepared for the moments when we will come face to face with Christ.

And when we keep close to Christ, we’re also prepared to do something most of our frantic, fearful, feverish world can’t even imagine: With Jesus beside us, we’re prepared to have a truly joyous and merry Christmas.

*DeVaul and others at MIT are working on lots of other wearable computing devices, which you can read about here.

[Top picture: A CBS News photograph of Richard DeVaul and his memory glasses. Bottom picture: Cerezo Barredo's wonderfully hope-filled representation of Luke 21:25-36.]