Date: November 25, 2025

Readings: Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

Preacher: Sermon by Fr. Travis O'Brian

Advent 1

“Now is the moment to wake from sleep . . . the night is far gone, the day is near.” “Keep awake . . . for you do not know on which day your Lord is coming.”  Wakefulness.  Readiness.  Preparation.  These are the themes of this Sunday, and throughout the whole of Advent.  The question is, what is it we are readying ourselves and preparing for?  And how?

            Jesus’ language in these passages from Matthew are cosmic and apocalyptic.  “The Son of Man will appear in the heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.”  What’s going on?  What is Jesus communicating by these urgent and even frightening words?  Something is happening: the old world-order is ending.  But something new is also being brought to birth.  When we are faced with the new, when the hour of the new arrives, says Jesus, the truth of the old will be revealed – and we will be revealed along with it: how much we were part of it, served it, conformed our life to that old order.

To speak of the “old” and the “new” sounds as if there is a chronological sequence at work: first the old, then the new.  But Jesus speaks of eternal things, wherein the new and the old can run together; two incompatible realities – the kingdom of Satan, prince of this world, and the kingdom of God – are present in this age at the same place and at the same time and even in the same heart.  Moreover, in eternity, in God’s time, the new comes before the old and brings about its end.  It is this vision that gave rise to St Augustine’s cry of sorrow and wonder and thanksgiving in his Confessions: “I have learned to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new, I have learned to love you late.”  The newest is the ancient of days; it is here among us, and it is coming, says Jesus.  Which order, he demands, is most real for us?  The ever-new order of God?  Or the order of this world, which is ending?  Because the kingdom to which we are most awake, which is most “real” for us, constitutes our “reality.”  It dictates therefore what we know to be possible, what we value, our relationships.

Satan is the seducer and deceiver.  He is, as his name means, the “adversary.”  Jesus calls him “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31).  Which means that if we are most awake to the “realities” that govern the world – realities, for example, of competition, of scarcity, of supply and demand, of power and progress – then our life becomes conformed to the rule of the deceiver.  What is his aim?  His aim is to thwart the Creator, to bring God’s work to nothing; to corrupt all that is given.  But the thing is, we live in this world.  We can’t but give ourselves to it: all its beauty and all its ugliness, all its truth and all its lies are part of us.  We are all citizens of two kingdoms: God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom.  Jesus urges us to wake up, therefore, to the truth.  For the time is coming when, in Christ’s presence, our lives shall be held up to the truth.  As we have chosen, so we will be revealed.

            Were we not born to nurture the beauty of God’s earth?  Look around us.  What makes us afraid to say that ugliness is untruth?  Wherever we see it, whether on Pandora Street or in the clear-cut, we can be sure that we are not serving the God of beauty.  Who, then, are we serving?  That is Jesus’ question.  Were we not born to care for one another, both friend and stranger?  Were we not born to nurture peace on earth?  Wherever we see violence, therefore, violence between nations, in our homes, anger even in our hearts, we can be sure we are not serving the God of peace.  Who then are we serving?  Were we not born to be priests of the universal Eucharist, providing every creature under heaven a voice of thanksgiving, a voice of celebration for its being?  Every creature – the rock of the mountain, the tree of the forest – witnesses in its own way the Love which gives it to be.  When we fail to behold and celebrate the wonder, when we regard the rock and the tree as a resource whose goodness we count by the value it brings to us instead of the delight it brings to God – who are we serving? 

            That right there is the judgement: when the reality to which our souls are conformed is revealed.  The reality of Love?  Or the realities of this world?  I read of a woman taking a guided tour of the Louvre.  At one point, she turned to the tour guide and said, “I don’t see what’s so wonderful about all these paintings.”  To which the guide responded, “the paintings are not on trial, Madame; you are.”[1]  The paintings, of course, didn’t accuse the woman of anything.  Yet her soul was summoned before them and found wanting.  She found herself judged by her inability to respond to them, the depths they opened, the relationship they invited.  Jesus’ urgent and apocalyptic presence summons us similarly.  Before him, our life reveals the reality to which we are most awake and serve: the reality of Love or the reality of the lie which Love is bringing to an end.   

            When Jesus says, “the Son of Man is coming” – he is expressing a reality that exceeds all saying – for the one who is coming is the one who is at the same time speaking; and he is pointing both to himself and away from himself.  Something world-ending is approaching, is coming to us, indeed is among us now – the same that has been since the beginning of all things.  It is Love’s own Word that is coming, at once so ancient and so new.  Can we hear it?  Are the ears of our hearts attuned to its voice?  We are being summoned to wakefulness. 

It is Love’s Word for which we are to listen, prepare, attend to: the Word that brings to an end the rule of the prince of this world.  How are we to prepare for its coming?  Love means turning the other cheek, praying for those who hate you.  Love means binding the wounds of the suffering; it means giving even your shirt when asked for your coat.  It grieves ugliness and violence.  It casts out all fear and makes itself vulnerable: we are to trust our life and our death to God.  Love means learning the names of the children, as well as the birds and the trees.  It means reading a poem, planting a garden, sharing a meal, inviting the stranger. It means learning to pray. It means eschewing Black Friday and choosing to walk the Advent Spiral instead, where something beautiful shines in our sharing of the Advent light.  Above all, it means celebrating Eucharist: for there in the bread and the wine the one who is coming makes himself present.  There in the bread and the wine is the Truth before which all lies are revealed and brought to an end – the lies of the world and the lies of our hearts.  Celebrating Eucharist, God communicates to us His eternal Word: Emmanuel, God with us.  Come, Lord Jesus.  Open our eyes; awaken us to your presence. Amen.