Four o'clock

John 1: 29-42, NT page 92 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). Sermon Losing track of time can be a wonderful thing. To lose track of time may be the sign of absolute concentration, to concentrate so completely on a task that you enjoy time ceases to matter and the minutes fly by, or to get lost in a conversation with a friend who understands you so completely that all at once the afternoon has passed without you even realizing it. And you compare moments such as these to other times in your day when time seems to stand still. Say you’re in church during a time of prayer, everyone’s head is bowed and silent, when your cell phone starts to ring. Using the newest Beyoncé song for your ring tone seemed like a good idea when you picked it out at home, but it now sounds obnoxious and inappropriate. And worse, the cell phone seems to have buried itself in your purse, in some remote subterranean pocket that you’ve never used before. You unzip zippers and rattle around, feeling everyone’s eyes on you – and it feels like they are condemning you but they aren’t really judging you so much as they are giving thanks to God that it’s your cell phone ringing and not theirs. The whole thing lasts about 30 seconds, but it’s not a typical 30 seconds, it’s like 30 seconds of an earthquake and the stress of it has taken 3 years off your life. If you have a job that you hate time moves almost as slowly. Susie Baxter is our Director of Christian Education, and one of her first jobs was as an inspector for a blue jeans manufacturer called H.I.S. over in West Tennessee. They produced Chic jeans, which in those days was absolutely the brand of jeans to wear, and while Susie liked Chic jeans she did not like the part of her job which she actually got paid for. She’d walk into the factory, and this part is easy to believe if you know Susie, she would stop and talk to every person she walked by, but when she finally got to her station and got down to the business of inspecting jeans, time seemed to slow down. She would be paid extra for any jeans inspected beyond her quota, but because she couldn’t stand to inspect the jeans and spent so much of her time catching up with the people she worked with, no extra income was ever attained. That’s how it is with a job that you hate. But if you have a job that you love – then you find yourself late in the afternoon looking at your watch and saying, “What happened to the day?” You find that it’s time to be home, hours having slipped right by, so you rush out and storm into the house, proclaiming to your family, “I’m so sorry that I’m late, but I’ve been working on the most exciting project,” and maybe your spouse is excited or maybe all your spouse can say is, “And it looks like you forgot to pick up the milk.” It was a new day and there were two disciples of John the Baptist, who at his announcement of: “Look, here is the Lamb of God,” followed Jesus who invited them to “Come and see.” They went and they saw and next thing they knew it was four o’clock in the afternoon. And here’s the difficult part – you can imagine that they went home proclaiming, “We have found the Messiah,” but when they finally got home, the whole day having slipped right by, their children were wishing they had something besides that announcement to show for a day’s work; maybe something to eat instead of something to announce that they couldn’t really understand. Sometimes doing the right thing will cost you, and in the case of the first disciples of Jesus, it cost them a full day. One full day it cost them, and you can imagine what all was left undone. If they were fisherman, no fish were caught. If they were tax collectors as some disciples were, they went to their supervisor empty handed. If they were husbands, you can imagine what their wives had to say when they walked in the door with nothing to show for their day but a smile on their face while she had been chasing children and doing laundry and making sure that what had to be done got done. It’s a hard truth, that following your dream, fulfilling your destiny, and finding the Messiah are not activities that can be scheduled and the reality is that if you want to know salvation something must be left undone. It’s true. You know the story of the Samaritan man who walked down that dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was probably wanting to make good time on his trip and we know he had business to accomplish as there was no other reason to make this trip down such a dangerous road unless your business interest demanded it. But this Samaritan man noticed another, lying on the side of the road who had been robbed and beaten. He stopped, “moved with pity,” and “went to him and bandaged his wounds having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.”” How often have you said, “I’d stop, if only I weren’t in such a hurry,” but consider what the first disciples of Jesus would have missed had they been more concerned with what they had to do than with being a witness to the work of God? It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the disciples finally looked at a sundial or something, and do you know what I am usually doing at four o’clock in the afternoon? Without fail I am rushing around, firing off emails, making a few more phone calls, all in the hopes of accomplishing something on my list of things to do so that I can go home feeling as though I’ve made something of my day. But do you know what I should be doing? I should be reflecting back on a day filled with miracles. A morning that began with food in the pantry for breakfast and children in their PJs to eat it. A walk across the street to deliver them to the school that they love, a lunch in a downtown that gets better every day, a conversation where some truth is spoken and some healing is found, a difference made, a corner turned, Christ made real as grace is discovered if for the very first time. You see – when the day slips by it is because you have been living, and while the world will tell you that when the day slips by it is because you are failing remember that the world will draw you ever closer to death and only the Lord will bring you to life. You must be willing to push your routine aside to make room for what truly matters. The sound of a ringing phone can feel like an annoying distraction even when it’s a friend calling, but a word from a friend is a distraction from what exactly? Dinner can be late, so sit down with your daughter if she needs to talk. Every game will end this way: one team will win and another will lose, so turn the TV off and talk to your wife before she quits trying. It’s true that President James K. Polk never left his desk until all the work to be done was finished, refusing to leave to tomorrow what could be finished today, but it’s also true that he died just three months after completing the term of his presidency when he was 53 years old, and maybe that was a full life back in those days but in the end, how many days at his desk would he have traded for just one afternoon with his wife? Tomorrow is a whole new day with another chance to do what needs to be done, but Christ may only walk through town this one time and if you won’t follow him now when will you? Amen.