The Lutheran Hour
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"Rise and Shine"
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Text: Romans 13:11
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5:15 in the morning—it was the earliest I’d ever set my alarm clock for. I was ten years old, and I didn’t trust myself to wake up when it went off, so I set a second alarm for 5:20 on my wristwatch. And then, as a third measure, I wrote myself a note. I wrote it, picturing white mountains glistening in the daylight, covered in fresh snow, I wrote it in ALL CAPS and three exclamation points, I wrote it and taped to the top of my alarm clock, “WAKE UP, MICHAEL! YOURE GOING SKIING TODAY!!!”
I did not trust how I would behave in the morning. Sleepy Michael does not act rationally. It was likely that the stupor of a night’s sleep would have me turn off the alarms, ignore them, believing that today was an ordinary Saturday when we sleep till 10, and eat cereal in our jammies and watch cartoons till lunchtime. I had to make my future self see that today is different. But, even if I had failed to get myself out of bed that morning, my family wouldn’t have let me miss the adventure. They would have carried me to the car.
Do you recall a time when you woke up especially early for a big day? A road trip to visit your family over Christmas? A weekend project you’d been planning for months? A flight back home after a work trip away? Something compelling that made you pop out of bed like hot kettle corn, shake the sleep from your eyes, shed your jammies and don your day clothes? It was that first ski trip for me, when my family lived in Colorado. The drive to the ski resort was three hours from our house, so we had to get up early. We’d made our breakfast and lunches the night before. We’d gathered our ski gear and set out all our clothes. The truck was loaded, everything was ready. We just had to get up and get moving.
My note—the hand-written rally-cry taped to the top of my alarm clock—it may have been redundant, but I couldn’t help it. At 10pm the night before when I wrote it, I was still caught up in the excitement. And when the alarm went off the next morning, I remembered. I knew I had a reason to get up.
Did you know that waking up early was one of the crimes the followers of Jesus were accused of in ancient Rome? It was less about the time, and more about the reason why they got up early. That’s what got them in trouble and in some cases, killed.
It’s all spelled out in a nearly 2,000-year-old text thread between the Roman emperor, Trajan, and one of his governors, a man named Pliny. Pliny sent a text, by horse and rider, to ask his emperor what to do about these Christians. They’re everywhere, he says. “Persons from every age, every rank, and also of both sexes,” city-dwellers, villagers and farmers, they’re all “endangered” by the “contagion” of these Christ-followers.
It was their early morning meetings that was the source of the mischief, Pliny suspected, What else could they be doing that early, but sowing seeds of rebellion? Christians were known for their meetings on Sundays (see Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor. 16:2), “before dawn.” Before dawn because Sunday, the first day of the work week, was a normal workday at that time, so they had to get up early before work to meet.
So, why did they meet? Pliny explains, with a note of suspicion, that these Christians say that there’s no rebellion, but simply that “they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing … a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but [rather] to not commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not to falsify their trust …[And] when this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food.”i
The letters are historical evidence that from the beginning there has been something so compelling about this man Jesus, that for two millennia, He’s been inspiring folks to wake up early. The letters between Emperor Trajan and Governor Pliny are the oldest known non-Christian documents about Christians. They were written around 111 A.D., about 80 years after the crucifixion and reported resurrection of Jesus.
I say “reported” resurrection not because I disbelieve the reports. I believe them. But I don’t want to automatically assume that this is true for you. I hope it is, but I don’t want to assume. Because belief in the resurrection of Jesus is no siesta. It’s a 5 a.m. wake up call, a jolt out of bed that will turn your world upside down. Christians have been killed because they believed that Jesus had risen from the dead just before dawn on a Sunday, and they were trying to live like they believed it.
So, when Governor Pliny gave them the option—curse Christ, worship the emperor and live, or refuse and face the sword—by God’s mercy, they chose Christ, because the threat of death didn’t change a thing. Jesus had risen from the dead, and they trusted He would return to resurrect them, too. They’d heard His wake-up call. The night of the old world was ending. Christ is risen. Today is different.
These Roman Christians were living out what Paul, a servant of Jesus, had written about in his letter, 50 years earlier. Paul, as a Christian, was writing to Christians living in Rome. In the latter half of his letter, in chapter 13 Paul reminds them, “You know what time it is.” He says, “The hour has come already for you all to rise from sleep. Because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is far gone. The day is at hand. So, let us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk decently, as fitting for the daytime” (Romans 13:11-12).
Then Paul mentions some “works of darkness” that were common in Roman culture (and still are today). He tells them not to walk in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and self-indulgence, not in strife and jealousy. But rather, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ—and make no provision for the sinful nature and its desires” (Romans 13:13-14).
Belief in the resurrection of Jesus was and is a wake-up call. But sometimes we Christians treat it like a “dormant fact.” Here’s an example of what I mean by a dormant fact—a few years ago, around our 20th wedding anniversary, my wife and I bought burial plots. The local cemetery was having a deal, so we bought a set. Quite the romantic gift, eh?
Recently, I was looking through my filing cabinet and I ran across the deed for those burial plots. And I thought, “Oh yeah, we bought those, didn’t we.” See, it felt significant at the time, but it quickly became a dormant fact, which means I don’t think about it. It doesn’t influence my daily decisions. The deed is done. It has no bearing on my present life, unless the friendly cemetery caretakers ask us to volunteer for the annual clean-up day, maybe then, but other than that, it’s a dormant fact.
Sometimes Christians treat the resurrection of Jesus as such. I’m guilty of it, too. I keep the deed filed away, out of mind. I think, “It was a special deal God did for Jesus a long time ago. Because of it, I trust God will take care of things after I die, but beyond that, it has no bearing on my present life.” It was because of this way of thinking that Paul wrote his wake-up call in Romans.
He says that the hour has already come for you to rise from sleep. Like us Christians today, these Christians in Rome had let the truth about Jesus become a dormant fact. They hadn’t lost their faith. They hadn’t cursed Christ. They hadn’t stopped going to church altogether. But they were being dragged back into bed with the world. Maybe some of them were up late drinking and carousing, or sleeping around or scrolling through smut behind closed doors. Or maybe they were just fighting over silly stuff, or jealous of each other, like kids who won’t share their toys.
Whatever it was, the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus had become a dormant fact for them. And it may be so for us. We also need the Holy Spirit’s wake-up call to rouse us from sleep. Jesus is risen from the dead. He’s ruling at God’s right hand. He’s king over every plot. And He will return one day—maybe today—to take it all back for God. He will raise the dead. He will shake the sleep from our eyes and expose the works of darkness with the light of God’s new day.
And that day has already dawned. It’s not a dormant fact. It’s a wake-up call into an adventure with God. So, now what? What do we do? Paul’s letter to the Romans points us in at least two directions: first forward toward the future, and second, outward in the present. Toward the future, we wait and see; in the present, we keep watch while we wait.
Let’s talk about the future first. With our eyes on the future, on the return of Jesus, Paul teaches us to have a “wait and see” attitude toward everything else. It’s like with the farmer and his horse. The famer’s livelihood depended on that horse. One day, he and the horse were out plowing the field and the horse drops dead. People in town said, “Poor fella, he lost his only horse.” But the farmer says, “We’ll see.”
The next day, some neighbors take up a collection and get him a new horse. People said, “What a lucky guy.” But the farmer says, “We’ll see.”
A few days later, the horse runs away. People said, “Poor fella, he lost his horse again.” But the farmer says, “We’ll see.”
A week later the horse returns with a second horse following it. And people said, “Wow! Lucky guy.” Now the farmer never had two horses before, so, he let his oldest son ride one. But the boy fell off and broke his leg. People said, “Poor kid.”
The next day, militia comes to town drafting young men for the army. They leave the farmer’s boy behind, what with the broken leg and all. And people said, “Lucky kid.” And the farmer says, “We’ll see.”ii
We’ll see—that’s something like the perspective Paul offers to the Christians in Rome. They’ve heard God’s wake-up call: Jesus is king and His kingdom is coming. That one thing is for certain. Everything else? We’ll see.
So, Paul says we don’t need to get spun up about national politics. Emperors and presidents, governors and pundits, heroes and villains, they come and they go, but God stands behind them all. And God uses whatever authority there is, the relatively good ones and the relatively bad ones, God uses them for His purposes, not to save us, but to keep the creation from veering completely off the road while the Good News of Jesus does the work.
So, Paul tells us to be subject to whatever authority there is (Romans 13:1-7). Respect your government, do good, pay your taxes, but don’t worship it. Don’t fight against it. Don’t locate your hope or fear in any of its rulers or revolutionaries, but only in King Jesus, the crucified and risen Son of God, because He’s the One we’re waiting to see. The Christian “wait and see” attitude isn’t flippant or wishy-washy. It just means that we look to Jesus as our only fully reliable Good. We don’t even trust our own opinions or preferences, because they’re so easily drug back into bed with the world, the devil, and our own sinful desires.
This Sunday, Christians around the world begin observing the church season called Advent. Advent means arrival. Advent is a season to re-train our eyes, to re-orient our lives on the arrival of King Jesus. We don’t just look back in history to His first arrival, His birth in Bethlehem. We also look forward to His future arrival, to the return of the King who gives us a reason to get up early, even on a chilly Sunday in November. Jesus’ wake-up call opens our eyes both to the future and to the present. We are “waiting to see,” and we’re keeping watch while we wait.
Try this exercise. Wherever you are, in a room, in a car, walking outside, flying in an airplane, wherever you are, look around you, take in what you see. Ok, now try this. Look again, but this time, look for five things that are red and then look for five things that are round. Try it, pause the recording, or if you’re listening on the radio, try after the program, just be careful if you’re driving.
Ok, were you able to find five red things and five round things? Now, those things you saw, they were there all along, but maybe you didn’t see them. Why not? Because you weren’t watching for them. You didn’t have a mindset to see “red” and “round.” You were seeing the world through some other lens. And you looked right past them.iii
Likewise, we Christians are learning to “re-see” the world as we wait for the day when King Jesus returns. Paul tells us to “put on Christ,” put Him on like a pair of glasses or ski goggles, to wear the love, the character and outlook of Jesus, like protective equipment we put to prepare for work, to see the adventure that awaits us.
One technique that Christians have used to “put on Christ,” is to meditate on a scene from the life of Jesus recorded in the Bible in one of His gospel biographies, to meditate on it, and then use that scene as a lens for seeing the world, to see opportunities to live like Jesus, to see people as Jesus sees them. So, let’s try it. Try it with a scene from the Gospel of John. Picture it with me:
It’s at the last meal Jesus shared with His followers before He was crucified. He could see that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and return to God, His Father. And having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already put it in the heart of Judas to betray Jesus. Jesus saw that the Father had put all things in His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, so He rose from the table, took off His outer clothing, wrapped a towel around His waist, poured water into a basin, and started to wash His disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel wrapped around Him.
When He came to Simon Peter, Peter says to Him, “Lord, what are you doing, washing my feet?” Jesus answered, “You don’t see what I’m doing for you now, but later you will understand.”
Peter says, “No, you will never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you’ll have no part with me.”
Peter says, “Then, Lord, not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well!”
Jesus says, “Those who’ve had a bath are already clean, they need only wash their feet.
And you all are clean, but not every one of you.”Jesus had seen who was going to betray Him. That’s why He said, “Not all of you are clean.”
Now, when He had washed their feet and put on His outer clothing and sat down again at the table, He said to them, “Do you know what I’ve done for you? You call me “The Teacher” and “The Lord” and rightly so, because that’s what I am. So if I, the Lord and the Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash each other’s feet, because I have given you a pattern to follow, so that just as I have done, you all should do for each other … if you see these things, you will be blessed when you do them” (John 13:1-17).
The pattern Jesus gives us, His followers, is His love. It’s not “love” in a sentimental sense. It doesn’t have to do with feelings in the first place, but with actions. It starts with what God has done. It starts with what God has done for us in Jesus. It continues with what God would have us do for others, to lower ourselves to serve the people around us, like Jesus did for us. That’s how we keep watch.
It’s a Christian leader who stoops down to sweep up a mess even when he thinks no one is watching. It’s a Christian volunteer who sits with a Muslim refugee to teach her how to sew. It’s a Christian family who, during Covid, set another place at their dinner table every Tuesday for a single woman from their church so that she wouldn’t have eat alone every night, a practice they still continue today, five years later. Jesus not only gives us eyes to see what He’s doing to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, He also gives us people to keep watch with, a church family that carries us, so we won’t miss the adventure.
A friend of mine was telling me about a big trip her family was getting ready to take when she was a little girl. She also was excited for the adventure, but not so much for the 5am wake-up call. When it came, she managed to get up and change out of her jammies, but then she crawled back into bed and fell asleep. She doesn’t remember what happened next. And when she opened her eyes, she thought she’d missed the trip. But there she was, in the car with her family. Someone had carried her.
In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
i Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96-97. Access on October 8th, 2025 at https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html
ii The story is credited to Dr Bernie Siegel, quoted in Paul McHee, Humor as Survival Training for a Stressed-Out World, 108.
iii Ibid., 72.
Reflections for November 30, 2025
Title: Rise and ShineNo reflection segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
“Crucifer” by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
“Gabriel, You Brought to Mary” by F. Samuel Janzow & Paul Bouman, arr. Kevin Hildebrand. From Hymns for All Saints: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (© 2005 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
“Lo, How a Rose Is Growing” arr. Jerry Gunderson. From Hymns for All Saints: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (© 2005 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
“Savior of the Nations, Come” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.