Advent 1 - 2025
Sermon for Advent I, Year A
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty
Good morning! Happy New Year!
It might feel a bit strange to say that, but in the life of the Church, today, the First Sunday of Advent, is our New Year’s Day! This is a season of beginning, of anticipation, and of a hope so profound it can reshape our very lives.
And yet, if we listen to the world outside these walls, the language of “the end” is often used to spark fear in others or displays of arrogance. You’ve heard it—the confident predictions, the cryptic calculations from scripture, the pronouncements that the end is nigh. Even in September of this year, people on the internet were convinced the rapture was happening (which is a whole bundle of bad theology itself — but I digress). It can be a terrifying noise.
I say all this to finally get to what Jesus tells us in our Gospel reading today. He refutes such spiritual arrogance, saying, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Not even the Son knows! Not the highest archangels are privy to the Father’s intention. How foolish it is, then, for any of us to think we can play with biblical numbers and ambiguous prophecies to discover what was hidden even from Jesus. God’s plan is just that—God’s. And in His wisdom, He has chosen not to give us a date, but a direction.
So if we cannot know the when, what are we meant to do? Jesus gives us the answer: “Keep awake.” “Be ready.” This is the heart of our Advent hope. This is not a call to frantic fear, but to happy watchfulness.
In story of Noah, which Jesus references, the world was going about its business as usual—eating, drinking, marrying, being merry—completely unaware. Their error was not living righteous lives in the time they had. They were lulled into a false sense of security, savoring the present to the detriment of a future-oriented existence. They failed to watch. And so we have been warned, not to despair, but to live accordingly.
This is our model. We are not asked to retreat from the world, but to live in it with a different orientation. We are the householders who know the thief is coming—not so we can bar the doors in terror, but so we can live every day in the light of that knowledge, making our homes, our hearts, places of love, mercy, and grace.
As for being caught off guard? We spend fortunes trying to avoid that feeling, don’t we? We insure our homes, our health, our lives. We make five-year plans. And there is wisdom in that! But what if this Advent, we did something counter-cultural? What if we invited ourselves and those around us to take stock of our lives, asking, “What is it that I most fear about an uncertain future?”
Is it illness? Loneliness? Failure? The unknown?
And then, having named that fear, we can speak to it the ultimate truth of our faith: “Whether or not my immediate fears are realized, I was created for more than fear.” We were created for hope. We were created for love. We were created for God.
So our watchfulness is not a nervous glancing at the sky.
It is a hopeful, active, and joyful state of being. It is building our ark—not of wood, but of acts of kindness. It is strengthening our household—not with locks, but with love. It is living a righteous life—not out of terror of the end, but in gratitude for the promise that the one who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it.
This week, the light shining forth from our wreath is small, the days have been getting colder and darker... but this is Advent, the four weeks we use to kindle a growing joy to burn hope in our hearts as we prepare ourselves from the coming of Emmanuel, God in us!
So this Advent, we keep a happy watch. We wait not for a doom, but for a dawn. We prepare not for an end, but for a Kingdom. Let us be householders who know the master is returning, so we live every day in the light of that promise, making our hearts and our community a foretaste of the world to come.
Keep awake, be ready, and hold the watch.
Amen.
