1 Advent, Yr A (2025) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Advent 1, Yr A (2025) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Matthew 24:36-44 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
“About that day and hour no one knows,
neither the angels of heaven,
nor the Son,
but only the Father.”
Well, here we are at the beginning of our church year
and the first thing we hear are apocalyptic words….
words about the end-time.
And how disconcerting to know that even Jesus didn’t know the day or the hour
of his return and the end of the age!
When Matthew’s gospel was written,
the early Christians were hopeful that the end was near
and that Jesus would come back soon to set things right.
The Temple had been destroyed,
and things were not going so well.
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
I’d wager that in these days,
many Christians are longing for Jesus to return, too!
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
Waiting is so hard.
And it seems to me that we spend much of our lives waiting for one thing or another.
We wait for the doctor’s appointment that was scheduled three months out,
if we got lucky.
We wait for the results of the blood test
or the biopsy.
We wait on the phone as we attempt to talk to a human being,
who now may be AI, posing as a human.
We wait in the grocery line,
the line at the post office,
traffic.
You get the idea.
We spend a great deal of time waiting!
Now, Jesus is talking about the ultimate waiting…
not all our mundane waiting (although some of it doesn’t feel very mundane).
Jesus is talking about when the Son of Man will return.
According to today’s text,
which is to say according to Jesus,
the day and the hour of his return are not important.
What is important is the character of our waiting.
“Keep awake…
be ready,” Jesus says.
In the examples given in the text,
everyone was just going about their daily lives…
eating and drinking, getting married…
tending the fields, grinding meal…
or even sleeping
when God’s radical in-breaking occurs.
I wonder if, as we go about our daily lives,
this season of Advent might a gift…
a gift in which we have a whole month to pay attention to the character of our waiting…
to be mindful of the character of our daily living.
If you want to spend your Advent Season in an intentional way,
this morning I offer you two ways to consider the character of your waiting.
The first involves the imagery of Advent candles.
Beginning today we light one Advent candle,
and then we light one more each week
until the Christ candle is lit on Christmas Eve.
We often speak of Jesus as the Light of the world.
That light gets brighter as we move toward his birth…
and his return.
The presence of light does numerous things:
Light deepens shadows:
the brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.
Or, as an opposite characteristic,
light can illuminate dark places.
Light can also illuminate the path for yourself or for others.
Advent, then, can be a time to be watchful for places of darkness and light in our lives.
We could use this time to see our shadows and to peer into our dark places.
Perhaps it is a time when we can see places we have wronged someone
or said something hurtful
or broken a relationship in some way.
In recognizing such times and places,
we can then offer an apology, seek forgiveness, and make amends.
Or, perhaps we have not been completely truthful about our own reality
and need to stand in our own light …
speaking our truth, not to harm another,
but to claim who we are and what we stand for.
Advent also could be the opportunity to bring Light into the life of another.
Perhaps there is someone in our life who we love and respect
but have never taken the time to tell them how they have been a gift to us.
As I was thinking about this text, the thought came to me:
If I were to die this week,
is there anything I would regret not saying to someone…
either expressing repentance or gratitude?
If so, now is the time.
A second way to consider the character of our living
- our waiting and our preparing –
is to be aware of how we spend our time.
If anyone has ever attempted centering prayer or meditation,
it is easy to see that our thoughts are rarely in the present moment.
If you’ve never tried it,
sit in silence for 10 minutes and see what thoughts flood your mind:
the grocery list, phone calls to make, household chores…
that conversation you had yesterday that didn’t leave you satisfied,
the worry about upcoming bills or an appointment you have.
So much of our daily lives are spent living in the past or the future
and often to little productive end.
Perhaps this Advent when we catch ourselves ruminating on the past
or being anxious about the future,
we can turn our focus to right now…
…to the task at hand,
to the person we are talking to,
to the beauty and awesomeness of God’s creation!
Perhaps this Advent we even attempt to not multi-task
but to focus fully on the present moment.
Now there is a challenge…
being fully present here and now.
“About that day and hour no one knows,
neither the angels of heaven,
nor the Son,
but only the Father.”
“Keep awake therefore…
be ready,
for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
Keep awake…
be ready.
Jesus calls us to live today…
fully and completely.
That is one way to live in preparation for the coming of Christ,
both for ourselves and for our community.
Christ will be born soon,
Christ is already born,
Christ will return.
As we wait,
we live in hopeful expectation.
Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Enlighten our hearts,
enkindle hope,
and teach us to love fully and completely,
now and always.
Amen.
