The First Sunday of Advent

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Keep awake!

Stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared.

This is one of the opening themes of Advent, and right now, it feels a little bit convicting.

Because, well, let me tell you about a time that I was perhaps… less vigilant. Less aware. Less… prepared.

Journey with me, all the way back to… last night, at about 5:00 pm. I’m settling into the office chair to print the bulletins that you are all holding for today.

I get about one bulletin printed off… and then disaster strikes. The black toner cartridge is empty. 

But luckily, I was prepared - or so I thought. Since I arrived back in June, a spare black toner cartridge has been sitting in the office, just waiting for us to need some replacement toner!

So I take the old toner out and put the new toner in. But… it wasn’t fitting right. And lo’ and behold, the ink cartridge was a leftover of our older model of printer. It was not made for this printer. It did not fit.

In a panic, I called Office Depot.

The time was about 5:00ish. They close, for some reason, at 6:00 pm on Saturdays. As does Fed Ex. And they warned me that they would not be able to print such a large order of documents for me before they closed.

Luckily, I have access to the printer at St. Philip’s, and raced up to the church, and was able to print all the things today - except for my sermon - which is why I am preaching to you today from my ipad.

Stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared. 

If there is anything I have learned from my experience of working with printers - never trust it the night before you have a big print to do. I certainly learned my lesson… My elevated blood pressure for about thirty minutes helped me learn that lesson.

But this was a simple instance where a mistake, an assumption, an expectation that I thought was covered - that I thought I was prepared for - did not pan out. 

Staying vigilant. Aware. Prepared is hard work, and often I’m not ready for it.

In life, if we’re being honest, we are often less prepared for all the twists and turns that we are going to experience than we’d like to be, or we ought to be. 

How much more, then, with our life of faith? Our walk with God?

Are we prepared for Jesus to come back? For the culmination of God’s divine plan in the world? 

Jesus implores us to keep awake. Stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared.

We find ourselves in the latter portion of the Gospel of Matthew, in the fifth major discourse of Jesus, also known as the apocalyptic discourse. Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives, and his disciples come to ask him about the end times. And Jesus proceeds to talk.

I’ve always found it interesting that Advent is the start of the Christian new year, and we begin by contemplating the end times.

Advent comes from the Latin adventus meaning coming, or arrival. During this season we look forward, yes, to celebrating what has already occurred - the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, some 2,000 years ago. 

And we look ahead, to the arrival - the advent - the second coming of Christ Jesus, which will inaugurate the fulfillment of God’s reign on Earth, bringing the glorious fusion of heaven and earth.

In many ways, Advent is an in-between season of quiet reflection on history, on what is past, and quiet anticipation for the future. And in many ways, we followers of Christ are an Advent-people. We are a people in between two points in time: The incarnation of Christ, and Christ’s second coming.

And the opening Gospel for this season implores us to keep awake. Stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared.

But what are we to prepare for? And how are we to prepare for it?

Well, we prepare for the second coming, or as Jesus calls it in the Gospel, the “Coming of the Son of Man.”

But the Prophet Isaiah gives us a glimpse of what we are to prepare for, of the hope we have in what the world will be like when Jesus does come again.

Prophet Isaiah presents us with a vision of the end times. Or perhaps, after the end times, when God’s reign is fulfilled on earth. All the nations shall come to the mountain of the LORD. 

It is a vision of a unified world, without horrible conflict, without cruel pain, without bitter division.

This verse has always moved me: “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Neither shall they learn war any more.

A vision of hope. Of a better world.

Contrast it with our world, with recent and current wars raging in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, and Haiti to name but a few. With continued gun violence towards one another and military violence towards immigrants and those most in need of the gift of hospitality in our nation.

Even so, we cling to the hope of the Prophet’s vision. And this is why we say “Christ, come quickly.” Neither shall they learn war anymore.

This is the future that we are invited to stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared for.

But how do we stay vigilant and aware and prepared for it?

And this is where St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans comes into play.

He asks us to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light” and indeed to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify desires.”

Our preparation is meant to be lived out daily in our lives. We are to “live honorably,” not in drunkenness or licentiousness or quarreling and jealousy. Now those last two are hard - quarreling and jealousy - because I love the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and it is full of quarreling and jealousy. But alas, we ought not engage in such things!

No amount of human effort can create the reign of God here on earth. We are fallen, we are sinful, we historically and currently seem to make a mess of creation more so than realizing God’s reign. 

We cannot work our way to God’s reign. It is God’s doing on God’s own time. And despite our hope and trust in God’s reign, we do not live nihilistically or cynically or lazily.

Stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared.

Our hopeful anticipation for Christ’s coming is one which requires effort. It requires our work both individually and collectively to live, as best we can, into the hope that we have in Christ Jesus and into the life of Jesus.

And that hope, that hope, is one which calls us to stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared. This is the first step at least, in cultivating a life of hope and joy in the midst of a difficult and challenging world.

And, it is a great step to not having printing mishaps the day before a big print.

Advent invites us, this week especially, to consider how we live in light of the hope we have in God’s reign and the second coming of Christ, and in the midst of a difficult world, where we strive to live honorably and do the best we can because in doing so, we help prepare ourselves - and perhaps even the world - for God’s reign.

Stay vigilant. Aware. Prepared.

This is the first invitation of Advent. May we continue to contemplate and longingly look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ.

Amen.