“Prepared for Christ by Love”

The Boy Scouts have a great motto for dealing with whatever life happens to throw your way: “Be Prepared.” That’s not only a great motto, it’s the message that’s at the heart of the season we’ve entered into today – the season of Advent.

Advent tells us that the Lord is coming. Christ is coming to visit His Church in blessing or in judgment, and today – this first Sunday in Advent – the message is, “Be prepared” – “Be prepared through love for His coming.”

We heard the apostle Paul say this morning that “Whoever loves another has fulfilled the law. For all the commandments, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet, are all summed up in this one commandment, namely, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Therefore, says Paul, “Love is the fulfillment of the Law.”

But we also heard our Lord says in the Gospel, “Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” Love fulfills the Law, says Paul; but when lawlessness abounds, says Christ, the love of many grows cold.

Now I believe that there is as much a principle as a prophecy in these words of Christ taken from the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. When lawlessness becomes pervasive in a society, like it has in our own society, it is so very easy for the people of God – it is so very easy for us – to become so focused on countering the lawlessness, so focused on opposing what’s wrong in our society, that we forget about doing our primary duty of loving our neighbors as ourselves, and our God above all others. We can get to the point that we love to hate evil more than we love to love people.

The man who rightly opposes the horror of abortion and works tirelessly to try at least to curtail that evil in our society, can nevertheless get so caught up in being anti-abortion that he forgets to be truly pro-life – pro the life of the mother and of the child, once it has been saved and is now in need of aid and support.

A person can become so strong in her opposition to the immorality – the lawlessness – of homosexuality and same-sex marriages, that she ceases to think about the persons involved in such things as those who need the forgiveness and healing of Jesus Christ.

A pastor can become so consumed with preaching against the sin in his community, and against the sin in his own congregation, that he falls away from his first calling to offer repentant sinners the free grace and the blood-bought mercy of Christ.

When lawlessness abounds our love can and often does grow cold. The warning implicit in those words is this: that if we are not on our guard, the lawlessness in our society will cause our love to grow deathly cold. For, Jesus says, only he that perseveres to the end – that is, only he who perseveres in love – shall be saved.

Love, the New Testament teach us, is the evidence of a living faith. It is that holiness without which no man shall see God. For without love the heart of faith is dead. And a dead faith cannot save.

And so St. Paul says in our epistle lesson that we are to do the works of love, to fulfill the law through love, and to do this especially, he says, “knowing the time” – that “it is high time to awake out of sleep; the night is far spent, the day is at hand” – that is, the day of the Lord’s visitation. He’s not talking about the Lord’s second coming at the end of history. He’s talking about Christ’s coming to His Church and to individual Christian within history for blessing or for judgment. That time is imminent, says Paul, and we are to be prepared for it through love.

It’s the very same message Jesus Himself preached to one of the most prominent and seemingly immovable churches of the apostolic age – the great church of Ephesus. We know much about the church of Ephesus from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. We know, for instance, that it was a church that was practically the standard of orthodoxy in its day. Located in a city that was the cultural and economic center of the Roman province of Asia, a city that was filled with practitioners of the dark arts of the occult and with the pagan worshippers of Diana, it was a church that stood firm in the apostolic doctrine and opposed and rejected every heresy and every evil way that tried to creep into the Church. It was also a church, at least in its early years, that was known for its great works of love towards all the brethren. St. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 1: “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you.” It was a model church.

But within less than one generation, Christ Himself sent an epistle to the church at Ephesus with a dire warning. It is recorded for us in the second chapter of the Book of Revelation.

In His epistle to the Ephesians, the Lord first commends them. “I know your works, your wearisome labor, your perseverance, and that you cannot endure those who are evil. And you have test those, who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.” You see, they continued to be champions of orthodoxy and of biblical morality, and were laboring tirelessly against the evil in their society. “Nevertheless,” the Lord says, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” You have left your fist love. You have done all these works for My name’s sake; you have stood against the lawlessness of your society; you have kept yourself pure. You have kept yourself orthodox. Nevertheless, your love has grown cold.

So He says, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works [the works of love], or else I am coming to you quickly and will remove your lampstand from its place.” I will remove you from being My church, is essentially what He’s saying.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you can go today to the west coast of what is now modern day Turkey, and you can see the ruins of the once great city of Ephesus, but you won’t find a church there. It’s gone – removed by the hand of the Lord because it was not prepared through love for His coming. It did not repent and do the first works – the works of love.

Jesus says, “Beware! When lawlessness abound in your world – like it does right now – the tendency is for your love – your love for Me and your love for others – to grow cold, because you become so focused on the evil that you forget to your first duty: To love the Lord your God will all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. I am coming to you. Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, repent, and do the first works.”

Notice that He doesn’t say, “Repent, and regain your first feeling,” but rather, “Do the first works.” Love is not ultimately a feeling. Love is a commitment – it’s a commitment to putting others above self. Love is a sacrifice. Love doesn’t just feel; love does. And the works love does are the works of the commandments of God. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”

Love has structure. Love doesn’t just follow its feelings; love follows the pattern of God’s love, and that pattern is laid out for us in His Law. For love is the fulfilling of the Law.

So while we must continue to stand firm against the lawlessness of our society, lest our love grows cold, we must not lose focus on doing our first works – the works of love which fulfill the commandments of God.

So don’t just be against adultery and adulterers and the ever-deteriorating sexual ethics of our times; love and be faithful to your own spouse, and be an example to our society in your marriage of what marriage is supposed to be: an image of the love and faithfulness between Christ and His Church.

Don’t’ just call for justice to be done for those who commit murder; “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”

Don’t just be on the look-out for those who steal; “work with your own hands that which is good that you may have something to give to those in need.”

Don’t just hate lying; speak the truth in love.

Don’t just not covet other men’s goods; love the gifts you have, but the love the Giver more.

Christ is coming – He’s coming to visit His Church. He comes today to visit us here. Are we prepared to receive Him? Are you prepared to receive Him? Are you prepared through love? If not, repent and do the first works – the works of love. +