First Sunday in Advent: November 28, 2004

Isaiah 2:1-5

Psalm 122

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:36-44

First Reading

Happy New Year! Once again the church proclaims a new beginning (of a church year) by looking forward to the ultimate new beginning too often seen as "The End": the coming of the Son of Man. A first reading of our texts for today from Matthew and Romans reminds us that, as we anticipate the coming of the Son, we ought to stay awake and turn to light.

Jesus tells his followers, "Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (v. 42). The past several weeks have given us many perspectives on how the faithful people of God are to respond to any anticipation of the end-times, of the coming of the Son of Man. As we begin the new year and the Matthean Jesus provides words of counsel to disciples, we hear that we are above all else to "keep awake." We are told that we cannot possibly know or predict the timing: only the Father knows. Not even the angels of heaven, not even the Son, know. How, then, could we possibly know? Jesus tells his disciples that they could not know the time, therefore they need to keep awake because it could come at any time.

The symbolism of awareness and being awake as opposed to being asleep connects with symbolism of day/night and light/darkness in our Romans reading. On the First Sunday of Advent, as the days in North America are growing shorter and darkness is gathering even as the church prepares to welcome the Light into the world, these contrasts are powerful ones for us indeed. Paul calls on the people of light to live as is proper for the daytime. Paul provides a list of sin, activities that are more appropriate to the dark and nighttime, and calls on the church to give those things up and "make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

In doing so, Paul proclaims "the flesh" to be negative, dark, and appropriate to the night, building on and reinforcing his belief, expressed elsewhere, that Christians are to forsake the flesh and focus only on the spiritual. This distinction and devaluation of the flesh is a concept that may be unhelpful in our time and may need some interpretation for our congregations. Hold this Pauline injunction in the context of the God who created us nephesh--body and soul together--and called it "very good."

Pastoral Reflection

The First Sunday of Advent seems to me to be a good time to preach about the lectionary, to preach the church year. You might choose to remind your congregation that this Sunday in November is the beginning of the church year. As Christians we live in, but are not of, the world; we, therefore, live according to two different time systems. We Christians begin our year of worship by looking forward to a new beginning, a time when the Son of Man will return.

In the readings from both Matthew and Romans we hear a great deal about staying awake and the call to live in ways that are appropriate to the light. It is possible to issue this call and proclaim this message without degrading the flesh and setting up an unhelpful opposition between things of the flesh and things of the spirit. Or perhaps it would be good or helpful to bring that up, to preach against Paul's "make no provision for the flesh" while maintaining the call to live lives that are appropriate to the light and appropriate to those who keep awake.

Most helpful, it seems to me, is Paul's proclamation that "the night is far gone; the day is near" (v. 12). As the days grow shorter and the darkness grows longer in our world, we are called to place our hope in the truth that God's light is entering the world and growing brighter. Through this season of Advent, the light will continue to grow, just as the number of candles on our Advent wreathes grows, until the Light of the World comes into our world. And so we use the season of Advent to prepare for--and to encourage our congregations to prepare for--marking the entrance in the past into our world of the Light of Lights and Prince of Peace as we continue to await with eager anticipation the Son of Man's entrance finally at the time of God's choosing. SM-K

COPYRIGHT 2004 Lutheran School of Theology and Mission
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group