{"id":1496,"date":"2011-01-02T15:02:19","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T15:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2020-12-02T03:11:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T03:11:03","slug":"time-to-get-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/time-to-get-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to Get Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

January 2, 2011<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a morning person, I automatically wake up when daybreak comes. Most days, I wake up before the alarm clock goes off. When our two children were in their teens, they would sleep in a lot. But when I was ready to get going on the day and they needed to come along, I would play records or LPs in those days, Richie Haven\u2019s Morning<\/em> and James Taylor\u2019s Everyday<\/em> songs to say, \u201cIt\u2019s time to get up!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were celebrating on New Year\u2019s Eve, you probably had a hard time getting up yesterday. Now that I am in my advanced years, I don\u2019t stay up anymore to celebrate the New Year like I once did by watching Guy Lombardo and Dick Clark. After living through a year and now another year is upon us, watching the crystal ball drop down on Times Square when I know that it actually happened 3 hours earlier seems uneventful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wish each other, \u201cHappy New Year.\u201d Time comes and time goes. The sun rises to give us a morning and the sunsets to give us a night. Is this enough of a reason to have a party? At my sister-in-law\u2019s house in Boston where I spent some of my college years, we celebrated New Year\u2019s Eve by eating fried wonton and agar jello sitting in front of the TV watching Dick Clark. I wonder if they still do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are we to make of time and its passage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything Has Its Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The passage from Ecclesiastes 3<\/a> is beloved poetry. For everything there is a time. The group, The Byrds in the 1960s made this poem famous by singing the song written by Pete Seeger, Turn, Turn, Turn<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, I have read Ecclesiastes 3<\/a> at funerals with its somber thoughts about human life. It stresses that our times pass by rather quickly. Our time doesn\u2019t have much significance. \u201cWhat gain have the workers from their toil?\u201d asks the writer. What good does human activity amount to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ecclesiastes, not much. God has enabled human beings to mark time, on days like New Year\u2019s. God has \u201cput a sense of past and future into their minds\u201d (3:11). We know that time is passing\u2014look at how gray I have gotten. An old year has ended; a new one has begun. We also know, as the writer says, that \u201cfor everything there is a season.\u201d There is a right time for this, a right time for that. And yet, humanity \u201ccannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While time has significance, we experience time as fleeting. And yet it has not been given to us to know the right time. In the face of this rather grim observation about human ignorance of the right time, Ecclesiastes says there isn\u2019t much to do but for us to enjoy ourselves as long as we shall live (3:12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are to find a way to live in the brief time that we have, humbly realizing that though there is a right time for everything, we humans are limited and cannot always know in which time we are presently living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God doesn\u2019t keep time as we keep time. Only God knows the final significance of the times of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\u2019s Timing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before God created the heavens and the earth, we don\u2019t know what God did before God created the world. What did God think about before God thought about you and me? God\u2019s timing is different from the way we keep time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it\u2019s wonderful to read when God finally came down and heard the cries of the Hebrew slaves, the glory of the exodus fades when one realizes that they had been crying in slavery for 430 years! Why did God wait 430 years before liberating the Hebrew children? God\u2019s timing is different from the way we keep time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bible has been called the book of the \u201cmighty acts of God.\u201d While it\u2019s true that there are some really impressive, though occasional, actions by God over these 4000 years covered by the Bible, there are also large gaps when God doesn\u2019t say or do anything at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost everything we know about Jesus takes place in less than a three-year span after he was thirty. Our question is: What was Jesus doing all that time before he was thirty? Most of us regard our childhood, youth, and young adulthood as the most formative, very important times of our lives. Why were those years so uneventful for Jesus that we have no record of them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In John\u2019s Gospel, Mary and Martha send Jesus the urgent plea, \u201cLazarus, our brother whom you love, is ill. Come quick!\u201d (John 11<\/a>). Friend Lazarus is near death. Two terrified sisters wait anxiously. John says that Jesus waited three more days before setting out for Bethany. No reason is given. Doesn\u2019t say that Jesus was otherwise engaged, busy with more pressing work. Just says he hung around where he was for three days. Of course by the time Jesus got to Bethany, Lazarus was dead, the funeral was over, he was entombed, and as Martha later told Jesus, \u201cby this time he stinketh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did Jesus wait three days before going to Lazarus\u2019 aid? Jesus tells Martha, when she chides him for taking his own sweet time to get to Bethany, to pipe down because this was all \u201cfor the glory of God.\u201d What\u2019s the \u201cglory\u201d in taking three days to respond to someone in such urgent need? God\u2019s timing is different from the way we keep time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saint Augustine, in thinking about time, says that God doesn\u2019t count time as we count time. When Paul was preparing the new churches for Christ\u2019s return, he told them to not worry about getting married or remain being slaves or even worrying about persecution by the government because all of this would not matter anymore because Jesus is coming\u2014sometime!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of these churches wrote to Paul saying, \u201cOkay. We\u2019re hurting. It\u2019s been decades. We\u2019re still waiting! Any word on when you expect Jesus?\u201d In 2 Peter, Peter wrote \u201cDon\u2019t you know with the Lord, one day is like a thousand of our years? What seems like a long time to you is no time at all to an eternal God\u201d (2 Peter 3:8<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecclesiastes proclaims that there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to make peace and a time to make war, a time to laugh and a time to cry. For everything under heaven there is just the right time. These words are beautiful and that\u2019s the reason why we read them at funerals or sing them in Turn, Turn, Turn<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all of this talk about the right time is followed in Ecclesiastes by a not-so-beautiful thought: Only God knows when that right time is! In today\u2019s passage from Ecclesiastes, the ancient writer says that God has put past and future in our brains, God has given us a sense of the passage of time, the passing of an old year, the beginning of a new year, yet we \u201ccannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, we know that time is passing, that an old year is dying, a new year is being born, but we don\u2019t know enough to know what any of this means. Are we moving forward or are we moving backward? Are things getting better or are things getting worse? Only God knows, says Ecclesiastes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is just the right time for this, and the right time for that, but you\u2019ll never know the time! God just doesn\u2019t keep time the way we keep time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of Jesus\u2019 parables, he tells of a story about a woefully unproductive fig tree that\u2019s wasted a lot of time–the parable of the barren fig tree (Luke 13<\/a>). Three years, no figs. Fig trees should bear every year. And in Judea, fig trees even bear fruit twice every year. But this tree has never borne fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCut it down!\u201d says the owner. Time\u2019s up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a servant pleads, \u201cMaster, let it alone which in the Greek means, \u201cforgive it.\u201d I\u2019ll dig around it, pile some manure, and let\u2019s see what happens and then you can do as you please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years is a long time to wait for fruit, a long time to be patient with such a worthless tree in a place where land is at a premium. And still the servant begs for more time for the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are times when we\u2019re waiting on God to do something for us and God seems to take forever. And there are times when God is waiting on us to do something for God and he seems to give us endless amounts of time to do it. Thank God!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience, rarely does God hurry. And that\u2019s hard, especially when you are suffering, or needing an answer, or waiting for deliverance. There\u2019s just the right time when God shows up in our lives and gives us the help we need. But sometimes it\u2019s not when we think we need the help. God didn\u2019t hurry to raise Lazarus or hasten to free the Hebrew slaves. In such times, God seems so slow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes, divine tardiness is a blessing. Jesus tells about a tree that, in all justice, ought to be cut down. Yet a servant pleads, \u201cMaster, give it some more time.\u201d And that\u2019s grace, especially when you have yet to take root, or when you have yet come to blossom into what you were created to be. In such times, God\u2019s tardiness is God\u2019s gift. There\u2019s still time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christmas Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s now January and we still sang a Christmas carol today. For those who only celebrate commercial Christmas, almost all of the holiday decorations are taken down and sacred music is not playing on KDFC anymore. While the world may be finished with Christmas, we are just beginning. The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus Christ, is the supreme instance of God taking our time and making it God\u2019s time, of God taking time for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the birth of Jesus Christ, we turned back the clock and started counting again\u2014the New Year is the 2011th<\/sup> year of the Lord. While one of our greatest challenges of loving God is to permit God to know the right time for us and to keep God\u2019s own good time, we also have the faith in Christ that God has come to us and will come to us, to heal us and save us\u2014but not always on our schedule, not always on our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will you praise God, even when God doesn\u2019t run to you according to your time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus tells this story of the barren fig tree on his way to Jerusalem. He is not at his destination. He is on the way. At the end, there will be judgment. For now, there is still time. Jesus tells this story to me and to you who are not at our destination. We are here on the threshold of a new year, still on our life\u2019s way. By the pleading of the Servant, Jesus Christ himself, by God\u2019s grace, for you and for me, there is still time. We\u2019ve got one more year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps it\u2019s my advanced age\u2014I\u2019ve clearly got more yesterdays on my account than tomorrows\u2014but I find that I wake up each morning surprised, grateful even, just to be waking up in the morning! I find saying to myself, \u201cSo. You have one more day. What a surprise. What a gift. So, what will I do with today?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time before us is both a gift and an assignment, both grace and judgment. What will we do, what will God do, with the time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s a new year. God has given us yet more time. During 2011 what will we do with the time? What will God do with 2011?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we believe in Christmas time, by God\u2019s grace, there\u2019s still time for us to believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God came into this world in our time and now making it all of God\u2019s time. It\u2019s time to wake up and get up and enter this New Year with expectancy, hope, and the promise of God\u2019s grace for you and for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almighty God, you are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things in heaven and earth. At the beginning of another year and the passing away of an old year, we gather,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To praise you for the gift of time, a New Year that stands before us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To seek your guidance and care in the days ahead, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To show our confidence in Jesus Christ who has made all of time\u2014 Christmas time that as we journey into another year, you journey with us. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 January 2, 2011 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. Being a morning person, I automatically wake up when daybreakContinue readingTime to Get Up<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37,11],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-ng-sermons","tag-ecclesiastes","tag-fcbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2196,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496\/revisions\/2196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}