Sermon - New Years' Eve 2025 - Luke 12:35-40

The Faithful and Wise Steward, Jan Luyken, 1840

Readiness

1. The New Year is a time to reflect upon the past, and make preparations for the future

2. In reflection we must recognize that we have not always been as ready as we ought to have been

1. For which we deserve punishment

3. Our Lord is merciful and forgiving, so we begin the new year afresh, and ready ourselves for Christ’s return

1. When He returns, He reverses situation and becomes the slave who serves us

A blessed New Year’s Eve, dear brothers and sisters in Christ! The close of the year calls for a time of thanksgiving and celebration. We look back upon the past twelve months and meditate on all of God’s providential care for us and our loved ones. Even in reflecting upon our crosses which we suffered through, we remember God’s goodness in preserving us through those trials. Any number of things could’ve happened this past year, and yet the Lord preserved us through it all. So tonight and tomorrow celebrate and rejoice in God’s omnipotent providence! 

As you ponder the end of a year and the beginning of a new year, you might be tempted to say that it’s just another day, and that’s kinda true I guess. But, it’s also true that God created lights in the heavens for the sake of ordering our lives. So we have seconds and minutes and hours and daytime and night time and days and months and seasons and years. After today another year has gone by, and tomorrow another year will begin. While we have lots of seconds, we don’t really have that many years; the majority of us have fewer than a hundred years in which to live on earth. So while you might say it’s just another day, that’s not really true because a significant chunk of your life has just come to a close, and that’s worth taking a moment to ponder.

As a year goes by and a new one begins, it’s appropriate to take stock of where we have been and to make preparations for where we’re going. Businesses regularly do this and it’s a good practice to reflect upon successes and failures so as to make appropriate adjustments going forward in order to be more successful. This is why people make resolutions, they look at their past year and conclude they need to eat better, exercise more, reallocate their schedules and budgets, and make various plans so that the new year goes well. We perform personal assessments and make plans so that we’re ready for the next year.

As Christians this is absolutely vital for us! We must be ready! Jesus commands us: “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” So take some time and reflect on this past year. Open the books of your conscience and heart, consider your works whether good or bad, ponder candidly your successes and failures in Christian living. I suspect after a little reflection you’ll want to slam that book shut because you’ll quickly see the treasure God has entrusted to you and how poorly you’ve managed it the past 365 days. At the close of 2025 you have to fall before the Master and beg His forgiveness.

In making a candid review of our lives we need to understand our failures and the consequences of them. We may be tempted to slam the book shut and just vow to do better, but that’s not enough and isn’t going to help us any. We can’t remain ignorant of our problems, but we must seriously consider them so that we don’t remain stuck in them. This evening’s Gospel reading was really just the first half of Jesus’ teaching on readiness, and it only focuses on the servants who are ready for the Master and how they were blessed. It left off the second half about the servants who were not ready. So, let’s read about those servants now:

“But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”

In this parable Jesus is the Master who has ascended to heaven and tells us, His servants, that He will return soon, but at a time we do not expect. While waiting the temptation is to think that Jesus has delayed, and therefore we have ample time before His return, so we can live however we wish before He comes back. We live like brutes towards others; we eat, drink, and get drunk. We become enamored with the passions and pleasures of this world, with all of the entertainment and busyness of life, that we fall away from the faith.

And what is the consequence of not being prepared for the Master’s return? “He will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.” Jesus is going to return at an hour we do not expect. Suddenly the thought that it’s just another day, just another year, is going to be proven so wrong! The year will have passed, and the person who was unprepared for Jesus’ return will be caught unawares in his sins and cast into hell with the unfaithful. This parable is meant for the Christian! For the guy who was baptized and confirmed, for the guy who thinks he’s a Christian, for the guy who knows Jesus’ will and word and yet “did not get ready or act according to His will.” This warning is for all of us who sit here in church this evening, who consider ourselves faithful Christians who actually show up to church on New Year’s Eve while everyone else is out partying. If we personally aren’t ready and don’t act according to God’s Word, we will be thrown into hell. This is a simple but a necessary reminder: those who live in unrepentant sin will go to hell.

But praise the Lord that He is gracious and merciful and He has delayed coming! Jesus isn’t just slow in returning, but He’s intentionally long-suffering; His delay is intentional in order to give us more time to prepare for His return so that we might be found ready. The Lord Jesus Christ has given us another night in which He forgives us, speaks tenderly to us, and nourishes us with His blessed sacrament in order to prepare our hearts for His return. Tonight your baptism has been made new for you and the sins of the past year have been cleansed. All your mistakes and failures are forgiven by the blood of Jesus. He was crucified and risen so that you may rise this new year with a fresh start! Just as you celebrate Jesus’ birth, you celebrate that His birth has made this new year like a new birth for you as well, and in the new birth of Holy Baptism you have a fresh and clean start at life.

Therefore, “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” Dress yourselves for action! Literally, he says to gird up your loins, which is to tie up your robes so that you can move more freely. This year dress yourselves for action and service to the Lord. Wake up each morning bright and early with your Lord’s work at hand and be prepared to accomplish it. You know the master’s will. You know right and wrong. So let’s gladly do what He commands!

Keep your lamps burning and stay awake, He tells us! When do you have to light a lamp or try to stay awake? When it’s dark and night and gloomy and you’re exhausted. So the instruction here is to keep your mind and your spirit alert, remain focused on God and His Word especially when you’re tempted to ignore Him and His Word. We live in an evil age when Christian morality and virtue is considered hateful, so the world around us isn’t going to help us remain faithful, so if we turn off our minds and just do what the world does we will fall away from the faith. Stay alert and ready! Don’t quit! Don’t fall asleep with the world. Jesus is coming soon! If you need it, let the threat of hell be like a cold shower that jolts you awake. But then keep your lamp burning with the oil of gladness and the good news of God’s mercy in Jesus, so that the Holy Spirit will sustain you in the Gospel.

Jesus is coming! The end of this year is a stark reminder that the end of this world is coming too! Just as this year is coming to a close, so is this world coming to a close. Those who are ready for Jesus to come back, whom the Master shall find awake when He’s knocking at the door, shall be blessed eternally! “Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.” What a surprising reversal! The Master becomes the servant in order to serve the slaves!

Already you have a foretaste of that blessed feast to come. He who washed the apostle’s feet and hung upon the cross, has come here to serve you this night. You do not approach the altar in order to serve Him, but here God serves you. Here the Lord becomes the servant and feeds you of His own flesh and blood. Here the Lord is preparing your heart for the glorious age to come. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!