Advent 1- living in between the first and second coming

ISAIAH 2:1-5; PSALM 122; ROMANS 13:11-14; MATTHEW 24:36-44

In Advent we begin the church year once again. We enter into a season of anticipation.

With ancient Israel, we yearn for the messiah to come, and we yearn for the kingdom that will come with him. … Isaiah expresses a yearning for a time when the ways of God would be respected by a united humanity. The profound peace that would be found on the earth would render weapons useless, and they would be refashioned into tools. They don’t even have to be put into the closet (just in case). They can be reworked and used for other purposes because they can’t even imagine a future when they will be needed. … This yearning stands against the present reality - violence, conflict, disunity, and the rejection of God’s ways. Isaiah’s voice cries out with a hopeful vision of a time when things will be different.

Ancient Israel’s yearning for the Messiah and his kingdom is also our yearning for the day when Christ will come again. … We can look into the world and see all kinds of ways that it needs to change. But we don’t have much power over the nations. It’s not that we can’t have any effect, but most of us are not going to have an effect on Russia and Ukraine. We can see things happening out there in the world that need to change and we see that really unless God causes change in the nations, not much is going to change. Without God intervening, there will continue to be violence and wars between nations. …

But, I can’t just point ‘out there’ at how others need to change. It’s also important that, as I wait in anticipation of the coming of Jesus, that I look at myself, as well. Maybe I don’t have the ability to cause or stop wars, but maybe I do that in smaller ways in my life. Are there ways that my heart could be more turned towards the ways of God?

During Advent we will hear Jesus warn us about being prepared for that unknown hour when he will return. This is one of the themes that Jesus comes back to again and again in Advent. Sometimes Jesus will talk about a wedding and being prepared with enough lamp oil for when the groom arrives, or risk being locked out. He will talk about a thief coming in the night.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus points to the Noah story. While Noah and his family built the ark, the people were unaware that a flood was coming. Or, maybe they didn’t believe that a flood was coming, as they watched Noah’s family seemingly wasting their time building a massive boat on dry land. Jesus says, 

“For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matt 24:37-39).  

Jesus wants us to live in a way that expects his coming at any moment. He, and his apostles, will constantly remind us to stay awake- to be ready- to be vigilant.

How do we stay awake? Obviously, he doesn’t mean that literally. … He means “be prepared”, “be vigilant”. … How does Jesus want us to be prepared though? I don’t think he wants us to just be in a constant state of anxiety. He doesn’t want us to start building an ark.

To come back to the Noah’s Ark image again, I think he is saying that whatever is not in accordance with the kingdom will be washed away. And to switch again to our image of sleep- To be “awake” then, is to have our eyes focused on the things of the kingdom and to be active in doing good. It is opposed to being asleep, which means to be unaware and unprepared. …

Paul, thinking about being awake and not being asleep, uses the image of day and night. The darkness of night is when we sleep, or are out doing things we shouldn’t. The light of day is when we are awake. Paul says, 

“Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Rom 13:12-14).

Night is when people get drunk, and go to wild parties. Night is associated with sexual immorality. We don’t usually associate that behaviour with 8am breakfast. Nighttime is often associated with activities we might be ashamed of. If your son or daughter is out after midnight, you are probably going to be more concerned than if they go out just after breakfast. So, Paul is using the symbols of night and day to speak about ways that are of the kingdom of Christ, and contrasting them with ways that are of a doomed reality, a reality that has no future.

The works of darkness are all those choices we make that draw us away from God, and draw us away from the love of our neighbour. These have been categorized as the Seven Deadly Sins. These sins cause us to be asleep to the Spirit. These sins express a way of being where we follow our inner desires without checking them or resisting them, we just let them pull us along.

How do we become people of the day? People of the kingdom of Christ? Paul says, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”. When we get up in the morning, one of the first things we do is get dressed. We do this by continually fixing our mind on Jesus. Just like we get up and get dressed every morning, so we get up and direct our mind to Jesus. This is why daily prayer and Scripture study is so important. We live in a broken world, and we won’t accidently follow Christ. It has to be purposeful. We have to plan for it. … We remember that we are baptized into his life, death, and resurrection. We continuously invite his Spirit to live in us and enliven us. We constantly place the Gospels into our minds, with the intention of applying the character of Christ to our own character.

We might think of ‘putting on Christ’ as parallel to putting on the ‘armour of light’ which Paul mentions a few lines earlier. Armor is what we put on in preparation for a battle. Battle requires hyper vigilance. We need to be constantly looking around us and asking where an attack might be coming from. The spiritual life has often been described by the saints as “spiritual warfare”. When some of us hear that phrase “spiritual warfare” we have a tendency to think about exorcisms, but for the saints ‘spiritual warfare’ means resisting thoughts that direct us away from Christ. Those thoughts might have demonic origins, but the way to deal with them isn’t necessarily through exorcisms. These are temptations. Spiritual warfare means resisting sin, and turning to Jesus and his ways. It means fixing what has been broken. It means doing justice. It means forgiving those who have offended us. It means learning humility and resisting pride. It means being more willing to see our own faults, rather than obsessing over the faults of others. This is true spiritual warfare. It means we live as citizens of heaven, even while we live in this present reality, while we wait for Christ to come again.

As we enter Advent, we are invited to live in anticipation of the coming of Christ - not just in remembrance of his coming to us as a baby at Christmas, but of Christ’s coming again as the rightful king to put everything right. There will be a time when the night is done, and the day will finally be victorious. All that is associated with the night will have no more place in the world. In the midst of the mess of the world, we are called to “stay awake,” to be vigilant and prepared by focusing our hearts and lives on Jesus. We are called to lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. We allow God to change us, so that we can become people of the Day, fully awake, as citizens of the heavenly kingdom. As we yearn for the dawn of God’s new world, let’s prepare, living each moment in the light of Christ. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.