Isaiah 2.1-5; Romans 13.11-14; Matthew 24.36-44
The church’s new year begins today with the season of Advent. Although Advent always makes up the four Sundays before Christmas, this season is more than a run up to Christmas. Advent is devoted to the coming of Christ and our responding, watchful looking for Christ in many ways.
His birth in Bethlehem is only one way that Christ comes to us. There are two others. One is Christ’ final appearing when he “will come again to judge the living and dead and his kingdom will have no end,” as the Creed says; when “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes;” the day Revelation describes when “death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” Christ will come in the fullness of time.
And there is yet another way, another time, that Christ comes to us. Between his birth and final appearing, “in the time of this mortal life” as our opening collect put it—in other words, today—we keep awake and alert for the coming of Christ in our daily lives. Didn’t Jesus say he would be with us always? He is with us now in our work and play, with us in our struggles and fears, with us even at the hour of our death; in Christ, even our ending is a new beginning. John Henry Newman, 19th century English priest and bishop described what it means to watch for Christ. “People who watch for Christ…look for Christ in all that happens. Awake, alert, and watchful, we look for Christ even in the routine of daily life.
This routine of life is what Jesus describes in today’s gospel when he talks about the days of Noah. I don’t think Jesus uses this Old Testament story to describe people who were exceptionally wicked. He doesn’t say they were killing and stealing. He says they were eating and drinking, necessary daily activities; they were marrying and giving in marriage.
Now ‘eating and drinking’ might include the idea that there was some sort of decadent over-indulgence going on; St Paul certainly warns about that in today’s second reading. But as Jesus describes this eating and drinking, he also includes the picture of people marrying and giving in marriage. These are people getting on with their daily life, expecting tomorrow to be pretty much like today, planning for the future. Yet in the middle of the normal routine of life, from meals to marriage, they miss out on the work of God, aren’t mindful to the ways that God comes to them or is present with them in all that happens. “Keep awake,” Jesus says. Be alert.
The next scene echoes this theme of God’s coming among us in the routine of daily life: two women milling grain, one taken and one left. The image of ‘one taken and one left’ does not mean, as Anglicans and Episcopalians read scripture, that one is taken away by God to be protected in a supernatural salvation while the other is left behind to endure a coming tribulation. This is not about righteous people being taken, kept safe and alive, while unrighteous people are left behind to suffer. Just the opposite. Here again, Jesus says nothing about the spiritual state of those taken or those left behind. The women at the mill are busy with daily chores.
And the phrase ‘were taken’ is simply a biblical way to describe the reality of death. You know how death can come suddenly and without warning. You see a friend who looks fine one day, expecting tomorrow to be pretty much like today, but death takes the people you love; you are left behind in a very practical way to go on with the routine of daily life. As for the appearance of a thief? It would be nice if burglars called ahead to warn us, but they never do. They aren’t as courteous as the National Weather Service, for example, giving us days to prepare for coming winter weather. We who follow Jesus do not know and cannot know the time of the Lord’s appearing. And so we watch for the presence of Christ in all that happens.
The call to keep awake, be alert, and watch in the present moment is also the theme of the second reading. “Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep.” For Paul and the rest of the New Testament, watching for Christ is about looking for Christ in all that happens and living in a way that gives hints and glimpses of the life God desires to people around us. ‘Watching’ is not sitting around, checking your phone, waiting for time to pass. To be awake and watchful is to take up the life of Jesus Christ, and to make Christ’s life your life. “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably.” These are not words merely about the future but words for today.
This reading from the 13th chapter of Romans is a summary of everything Paul has said in the verses leading up to this point about the shape of Christian life, what it means to see and show the presence of Christ in all that happens. His words are an indispensable guide for how we are meant to live. It begins in chapter 12. ‘Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking-around—and place it before God as an offering. Let love be genuine. Hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Be patient in your suffering and focused when serving the needs of others. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Don’t insist on getting even. If possible, as far as you can, live in peace and harmony with all people.’ What a beautiful description of Christian life. Now is the time to make Christ’s life our life. As we watch for Christ, are awake and alert to his presence, we express our faith in works of love. God has made us to be a light in a dark world. “Put on the armor of light.”
Echoing that reading from Romans, today’s opening collect prays, “Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Give us grace. We need grace from God to stay awake and alert, grace to watch for the presence of Christ, grace to be living signs of hope. Because doing all that is a difficult task. The church has waited 2000 years for the fullness of Christ’s appearing to happen; still waits for the prophet Isaiah’s vision of violent deeds and angry words being reshaped into instruments of peace to happen. It is easy to think, then, that nothing is going to happen.
And because our lives are filled with busyness on the one hand (especially this time of year), and the day-in-day-out routine and boredom that go with normal living on the other hand, we are like the people in the days of Noah; we stop expecting, watching, and looking. Faith gets set on cruise-control, foot off the pedal, coasting along; or we numb our feelings with addiction and distraction; and then we miss the presence of Christ among us and the way God calls us to live. We do not know the day and hour, no one knows the day or the hour, as Jesus says. Yet even though we don’t know when, we do know who is coming: the God in whom our lives are held secure.
The world needs the witness of people who show the truth of Christ in and through their whole lives, people who wear the armor of light in the present darkness. Every step we take in this world is a step either toward darkness or light. Every harsh word, every mean act, every vengeful thought is a part of the works of darkness; in contrast, every act of forgiveness, every temptation resisted, every small act of generosity is grace. That is why the opening collect has us pray, “Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life.”
There is an old, venerable practice among Episcopalians and Anglicans to pray that prayer every day, twice a day, throughout the four weeks of Advent, morning and evening. It’s not a bad way to keep the season. It will certainly give you a break from the busyness and distractions, even if just for a minute; will keep you alert to the life God calls you to. So take your bulletin home with you, cut out the opening collect, and put it in a place where you will see it—morning and evening—and pause to pray it twice a day. Or even better, find it online, download it, and make it your lockscreen so that you have to see it throughout the day. Then, on Christmas Eve, tell me how God has answered this prayer in and through your life during Advent. “Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life.”
As we begin a new church year, we don’t greet it with the festivity or revelry of January 1. We greet it with a prayer for grace, courage, and imagination to live as people through whom the life of Christ will be seen—awake, alert, watchful for Christ in all that happens. Jesus Christ, born for the world in the midst of time, will come in fullness at the end of time, and he is with us even now in our time, even in the routine of our daily life. He is the one who was, and is, and is to come. That means we should not be surprised to find that Christ is among us now, coming to us even today: here in bread and wine, in words of forgiveness, in the people around us, and in works of love and mercy—all giving strength and courage, life and hope, through God’s own grace.
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