The Season of Advent

I'm sharing my sermon notes from the first Sunday of Advent, November 30th, 2025, and the meaning of this season.

The Gospel text for the day was Matthew 24:36-44 - Jesus said “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the 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. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Did that seem like a weird reading for Advent? Let’s talk about Advent. Historically we’re joining a tradition with other Christians that began in Northern Italy in the 5th Century and then expanded out through the European continent and beyond. It began as a tradition of preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ, and to renew the people’s commitment to being faithful disciples of Christ. Advent had become a season which reminds us to prepare and look for two arrivals of Christ, remembering his birth 2,000 years ago and looking ahead to his promise to one day return in the flesh.

Over the years the practice of Advent has changed and shifted as different traditions were added, things familiar to us like the Advent Wreath with the central Christ candle and the four multicolored candles (3 purple, 1 pink), and various themes for the candles. Common candle themes are Hope, Peace, Joy & Love or Hope, Faith, Joy & Peace.

And there’s the Advent theme of LIGHT!

We celebrate the growing light of the wreath as more candles are being lit, one more each Sunday, until Christmas Eve and Day when all five are burning. It reminds us of the Light of Christ coming closer and the Light of God’s truth growing brighter in our lives. It makes me of those lines from Psalm 119 that I always recall in the King James’y English, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Since the earliest days Advent has been a penitential season, an intense time of prayer, fasting and reflection on ones life. It’s a season of preparing ourselves. Spiritually speaking, a penitential season is like cleaning the house and setting the table for the big family get together. We’re hosting and we need to be ready!

Are you the usual host for Thanksgiving or Christmas? It’s a lot of work, isn’t it? Preparing for those big days is often when realize we haven’t dusted like we thought. Stuff has gotten cluttered and dirty. Corners aren’t as clean as we claimed, and spider webs have gathered in places of less daily traffic.

But if we’re hosting, we gotta get things ready! So, we vacuum and we dust. We pickup the laundry that’s been aging on the couch and we clear the stack of junk mail that’s been taking up valuable counter space in the kitchen. We look a closer at what we actually have in the pantry and make our shopping lists for what we need.

Time takes on a new significance as the big day approaches because we want to be ready. And in much the same way Advent is a countdown to the big day, but also a reminder that we don’t have a countdown, deadline or an end-date to being a disciple of Christ.

As a disciple, now is go time. No need to wait.

Yes, we can look on a calendar each year and know when we’ll celebrate Christmas, and so that part of Advent’s waiting is very well defined. Yet, each year we begin Advent with readings about the second arrival of Christ, his return trip, for which we don’t have a date and time. We have only the encouragement to be ready. Advent is a time to remember that waiting on Christ is not always

the same as waiting on Christmas.

Each year we begin Advent, not with shepherds and angels, but with a reading about the big day we don’t know about, when Jesus will return in the flesh. We begin with the more difficult work of keeping ourselves on the path of discipleship in day-to-day life. That’s a very different kind of challenge and a different kind of waiting.

Advent reminds us that we are daily hosting Christ in our lives, inviting Christ to be with us and to be seen through us, known by us and to be leading us.

Just like when we start looking around the house and realize we haven’t dusted as often as we thought or cleaned corners as much we claimed, Advent calls us to inspect the dusty cob-webbed corners of our souls.

This is not a big guilt-trip thing. It’s not about how bad we are. But it is about who we’re called to be and who we want to be. It’s a chance to break out of the daily routine that can make us numb and sometimes blind to the things we’re letting slip. It’s a chance to prayerfully do some little planning. Those efforts of reflection and renewal are our work for the Advent Season.

There are always going to be a few things in each of our lives, spiritually speaking, to dust off. Maybe there are one or two corners to clean…

o It could be a habit to break, or a possibly new one to make.

o Maybe it’s a distraction that needs to be replaced with a better focus to be embraced.

It any of us need a place to start such a reflection, how about the whole Chapter 5 of Galatians andespecially those manifestations of the Spirit in our lives? We could reflect on the presence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in our lives (Galatians 5:22-26). The Lord knows this world already has enough hatred, sadness, conflict, impatience, meanness, selfishness, untrustworthiness, hardness and chaos. And I mention that whole chapter because it begins speaking of freedom, and some of us may need to break the chains of an addiction. Paul gives his own opposite list to the fruits including idolatry, impurity, divisions and envy. We may find the webs of these things hanging in the dusty corners of our hearts.

Again, this is not a guilt trip, but a chance to move with God’s strength and grace to better prepare ourselves for being who we were called to be, and to better prepare ourselves for the work in the church and this world called has called us to share.

Let the spiritual house cleaning begin, and may God give us clarity, energy and joy in the Season.