Revelation 3:1-6 BibleGateway.com
Two of the most irritating words in all the English language are: “Wake up!” Just hearing the words brings back memories of my dad’s early morning ritual of waking my brother and me for school. On mornings when we were difficult to rouse, and we rolled over and went back to sleep, our drowsy recalcitrance elicited my dad’s fury. Now that I’m a parent of two young children, I commiserate with my dad’s impatience.
In Revelation 3:2, the Risen Christ says these exact words to the believers at Sardis: “Wake up!” People who are asleep generally want to remain that way, and trying to stir exhausted, cranky people is unpleasant. The situation at Sardis, however, is even more dire, for what Christ describes is not just spiritual drowsiness but a problem of false veneers and fatal lethargy.
“You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead!”
All believers wrestle with the ideal Christian self we want to be and the self we really are. That tension can be so exhausting that we all experience spiritual fatigue and pretense and often do not realize it until something divine intrudes upon our world to wake us up. The Good News of Advent is that God entered human history in the form of a baby — the Christ Child — and there’s nothing in all the world like the arrival of a baby to keep us awake!
Prayer: Lord, living the faithful Christian life is exhausting. Forgive us when we doze off now and then, and quicken our ears to your voice that we might remain awake with you.
Amen
David Lee Jones
Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
Two of the most irritating words in all the English language are: “Wake up!” Just hearing the words brings back memories of my dad’s early morning ritual of waking my brother and me for school. On mornings when we were difficult to rouse, and we rolled over and went back to sleep, our drowsy recalcitrance elicited my dad’s fury. Now that I’m a parent of two young children, I commiserate with my dad’s impatience.
In Revelation 3:2, the Risen Christ says these exact words to the believers at Sardis: “Wake up!” People who are asleep generally want to remain that way, and trying to stir exhausted, cranky people is unpleasant. The situation at Sardis, however, is even more dire, for what Christ describes is not just spiritual drowsiness but a problem of false veneers and fatal lethargy.
“You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead!”
All believers wrestle with the ideal Christian self we want to be and the self we really are. That tension can be so exhausting that we all experience spiritual fatigue and pretense and often do not realize it until something divine intrudes upon our world to wake us up. The Good News of Advent is that God entered human history in the form of a baby — the Christ Child — and there’s nothing in all the world like the arrival of a baby to keep us awake!
Prayer: Lord, living the faithful Christian life is exhausting. Forgive us when we doze off now and then, and quicken our ears to your voice that we might remain awake with you.
Amen
David Lee Jones
Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
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For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.CLICK HERE to learn how you can support the mission of Austin Seminary
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